Background: The increasing trend in the prevalence of multiple sclerosis (MS) cannot be neglected. Long-term epidemiological investigations of MS patients who have been registered in Taiwan are very scarce.
Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiology of MS and medical utilisation among MS patients in Taiwan.
Methods: The National Health Insurance Research Database was used as the source of the research population; the time period investigated was 2001-2015. A descriptive statistical analysis of the number of MS patients was conducted. For newly diagnosed MS patients, the frequencies of emergency visits and hospitalisations and changes in their temporal distributions were calculated.
Results: The standardised incidence of MS peaked at 0.50/100,000 in 2003, and the highest standardised prevalence was 7.14/100,000 in 2015. The highest standardised mortality was 0.11/100,000 in 2015, with an overall mortality rate of 13.34/1000 person-years. The number of annual emergency visits for MS patients peaked at 0.9 ± 3.5 in 2011, and the longest annual length of hospital stays was 19.2 ± 40.1 days in 2001, which decreased to 5.6 ± 23.5 days in 2015.
Conclusion: The standardised prevalence of MS steadily increased, and its incidence slightly decreased from 2001 to 2015.
Keywords: Multiple sclerosis; epidemiology; incidence; medical utilisation; mortality; prevalence.