The challenge
Our client wanted to develop a trackable index for patients newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma to track and measure the patient experience, including unmet needs, access barriers and burden of the disease at various stages.
The solution
We conducted 30-minute online surveys with transplant eligible and ineligible MM patients across 7 markets. The research covered three key stages in a MM patient’s journey: diagnosis, treatment initiation, and living with MM, and the following topics were included:
- Access and journey to diagnosis
- Access to and experience with drugs
- Access to treatments
- Emotional/Psychological burden at all stages
- Socio/Economic Burden at all stages
- Caregiver burden
Markets: Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain and UK.
The outcomes
Through helping our client to understand the experience of multiple myeloma diagnosis, treatment and living with the disease in the long term from a patient’s perspective, we were able to support them in communicating needs to policy makers.
We identified areas of need that could be targeted, such as more support at diagnosis for patients and caregivers and more patient-specific information / education. We identified barriers patients face that negatively impacted on their experience, such as delays in diagnosis, limitations in access to treatments and financial impact of treatment. We also captured insights into the psychological burden and identified when this is most acutely felt within the journey. We also evaluated the burden placed on caregivers and/or family members and how this indirectly impacted the patients. The findings from our research supported our client in delivering a robust and reliable index tracking program which successfully met global, regional and local stakeholder needs.
