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  • Thalassemia Reports is published by MDPI from Volume 12 Issue 1 (2022). Previous articles were published by another publisher in Open Access under a CC-BY (or CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, and they are hosted by MDPI on mdpi.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with PAGEPress.
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17 March 2021

Iranian Patients’ Attitudes to Current and Novel Therapies: A Patient Directed Survey

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1
Charity Foundation for Special Diseases, Tehran, Iran
2
Virologist, Executive Director, Thalassaemia International Federation, 31, Ifigenias Street, 2007 Strovolos, Nicosia, Cyprus
3
School of Nursing at Narita, Public Health Nursing, International University of Health and Welfare, Chiba, Japan
4
Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Thalassemia is one of the important challenges of the health system in Iran. Recently the medicinal drug of luspatercept and gene therapy have opened new horizons for thalassemia treatment. The present article aims to evaluate the attitude of thalassemics in Iran about the new treatments. In this research, data collection through the virtual space has been practiced. The patients were required to declare their opinion on the aforementioned treatments. Finally, 128 male and 204 female plus 1 who did not specify their gender answered the questions. The results showed that despite patients’ positive attitude towards new treatments, their treatment experiences as well as the expenses of the new treatment practices are cause of concern. Moreover, the social problems like unemployment among thalassemics place impact on their perspective about treatment changes. Based on the findings of the present research, providing patients with more information about new treatment regimen and making the their expenses compatible with the economic status of the developing countries would be effective in making the new treatments accessible to all eligible patients.

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