Dr Deborah Taira Addresses Patient Demographics and Comorbidities in MS

Addressing comorbidities plays an important role in the management of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), particularly given their association with hospital admissions. In a study using data from the National Patient Sample, comorbidities were linked with patients’ age, sex, and race and ethnicity, said Deborah Taira, MPA, ScD, professor, Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo.

Transcript

What did your research show about patient demographics and their relationship to comorbidities among inpatients with MS?

What we did is we looked at data from the National Inpatient Sample, and we focused just on MS-related admissions, so those with either no comorbidities, or minor or major comorbidities. And then, we looked at how demographic factors affected whether they had no comorbidities or the minor or the major.

What we found, not surprisingly, is that age was related to having minor or major comorbidities. It was probably the strongest factor related to that.

In terms of other demographics, it was interesting because being male made you likely to have major compilations or no complications, but actually, females had more minor complications. So it’s a little bit complex related to gender.

And then, the other thing we looked at was race and ethnicity. We found that whites were most likely to have major or minor complications. Next was African Americans, and then Hispanics, who were the least likely to have minor or major complications, and Asians and Pacific Islanders were somewhere above Hispanics.