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Self-Injection Anxiety Training: a treatment for patients unable to self-inject injectable medications

University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA, dmohr{at}itsa.ucsf.edu

Darcy Cox

University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

Natalia Merluzzi

University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

Anxiety and phobia frequently prevent patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) from self-injecting their injectable disease-modifying medications. This small, randomized, controlled trial tested the efficacy of a six-session nurse-administered programme to teach self-injection to patients with MS, who, due to anxiety or phobia, were unable to self-inject their injectable medications. Participants were 30 patients with MS who were prescribed interferon beta-1a (IFNß-1a) administered via weekly intramuscular injection. All patients were unable to self-inject due to anxiety or phobia. Patients were randomized to either the six-session Self-Injection Anxiety Therapy (SIAT) or a control telephone support condition modelled on the support programme offered by the manufacturer of IFNß-1a. Four patients dropped out of SIATwhile three dropped out of the control condition. Eight patients receiving SIAT, compared to three control patients, were able to self-inject after six weeks of treatment. SIAT patients were significantly more likely to achieve self-injection at treatment cessation, compared to telephone control patients, in completer analyses (p=0.022), however, this only reached a trend in intent-to-treat analyses (p=0.058). These findings suggest that SIAT is a potentially valuable intervention to teach self-injection skills to injection phobic and anxious patients, and should be investigated more thoroughly in a larger clinical trial.

Key Words: Adherence • injection • multiple sclerosis • phobia

Multiple Sclerosis, Vol. 11, No. 2, 182-185 (2005)
DOI: 10.1191/1352458505ms1146oa


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