Adherence and treatment patterns of disease-specific drugs among patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension: A nationwide, new-user cohort study

Abstract

Background: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is an incurable pulmonary disease that might result in right heart failure and death. Treatment guidelines recommend upfront or sequential combination therapy for patients with PAH. Recently, several PAH-targeted medications have been approved in Taiwan. This study aimed to investigate treatment patterns and medication adherence in real-world settings. Method: This was a new-user design study on patients treated with PAH-specific medication between 1 January 2014, and 31 December 2019. Data were extracted from the National Health Insurance Research Database. Medication adherence was evaluated by the proportion of days covered (PDC). Adherence was defined as PDC ≥.8. Statistical analyses were performed to compare the study outcomes. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify the association between baseline characteristics and adherence. P