Background The Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire for Medication (TSQM) was designed to assess patient treatment satisfaction in chronic diseases. Its performance can be used in multiple sclerosis (MS).

Purpose To compare treatment satisfaction in four domains: effectiveness, side effects, convenience and global satisfaction in patients with MS who attended an outpatient pharmacy department.

Material and methods The study was conducted in a tertiary hospital in Madrid, Spain. Eligible patients were those who had received one of the following treatments for at least 4 months: subcutaneous interferon β-1a (SC IFNβ-1a) 125 μg, Plegridy; SC IFNβ-1a 22/44 μg, Rebif; SC IFNβ-1b 250 μg, Betaferon; glatiramer acetate (GA) 40 mg, Copaxone; oral (PO) teriflonomide, Aubagio; PO dimethyl fumarate (DMF), Tecfidera; or PO fingolimod, Gilenya. Patients were asked to complete the TSQM questionnaire. Furthermore, the pharmacist registered any adverse drug reactions the patients could have suffered during the last month.

Results 60 patients (41 women) with a median age of 44±11 years were included in the study. The most used treatments were SC IFNβ-1a (15 patients) and DMF (12). Treatment satisfaction scores were 71.4 (71.4–85.7) for effectiveness, 90.0 (75.0–96.3) for side effects, 78.6 (71.4–90.4) for convenience and 76.5 (70.6–88.2) for global satisfaction (out of a maximum of 100). There were statistically significant differences among the different patients´ treatment satisfaction scores in terms of side effects (p=0.0034) and convenience (p=0.0041). However, no differences were found for effectiveness (p=0.8339) or global satisfaction (p=0.8711). When comparing PO versus SC treatments, there were important differences in terms of sides effects (p=0.0027), but global satisfaction remained non-significant (p=0.6204). Most reported side effects were injection site reactions (71.1% of patients with SC treatment) and flu-like symptoms for IFN administrations (54.9%). Patients reported gastrointestinal adverse symptoms for DMF (83.3%). Fingolimod was the best tolerated treatment (all 5 patients reported no adverse effects).

Conclusion Patients with MS who attended our outpatient pharmacy department were satisfied in terms of effectiveness, side effects, convenience and global satisfaction. Differences in the profile of side effects were remarkable but these did not t affect effectiveness or global satisfaction.

No conflict of interest