RESEARCH ARTICLE
Correlates of Initiation of Treatment for Chronic Hepatitis C Infection in United States Veterans, 2004–2009 Adi V. Gundlapalli1,2☯*, Richard E. Nelson1,2☯, Candace Haroldsen1,2, Marjorie E. Carter1,2, Joanne LaFleur1,3 1 Informatics, Decision Enhancement, and Surveillance (IDEAS) Center, VA Salt Lake City Health Care System, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America, 2 University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America, 3 University of Utah College of Pharmacy, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. * [email protected]
Abstract OPEN ACCESS Citation: Gundlapalli AV, Nelson RE, Haroldsen C, Carter ME, LaFleur J (2015) Correlates of Initiation of Treatment for Chronic Hepatitis C Infection in United States Veterans, 2004–2009. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0132056. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0132056 Editor: Naglaa H. Shoukry, University of Montreal Hospital Research Center (CRCHUM), CANADA Received: January 10, 2015 Accepted: June 9, 2015 Published: July 13, 2015 Copyright: This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. Data Availability Statement: Analyses were performed using raw data that are available only within the US Department of Veterans Affairs firewall in a secure research environment, the VA Informatics and Computing Infrastructure (VINCI). In order to comply with VA privacy and data security policies and regulatory constraints, only aggregate summary statistics and results of analyses are permitted to be removed from the data warehouse for publication. The authors have provided detailed results of these analyses in the paper. These restrictions are in place in order to maintain patient privacy and confidentiality. Access to these data can be granted to persons who
We describe the rates and predictors of initiation of treatment for chronic hepatitis C (HCV) infection in a large cohort of HCV positive Veterans seen in U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2009. In addition, we identify the relationship between homelessness among these Veterans and treatment initiation. Univariate and multivariable Cox Proportional Hazards regression models with timevarying covariates were used to identify predictors of initiation of treatment with pegylated interferon alpha plus ribavirin. Of the 101,444 HCV treatment-naïve Veterans during the study period, rates of initiation of treatment among homeless and non-homeless Veterans with HCV were low and clinically similar (6.2% vs. 7.4%, p0.1. Variables were added one at a time, and all previously included variables were retested at each iteration; those with p-values
Correlates of Initiation of Treatment for Chronic Hepatitis C Infection in United States Veterans, 2004–2009 Adi V. Gundlapalli1,2☯*, Richard E. Nelson1,2☯, Candace Haroldsen1,2, Marjorie E. Carter1,2, Joanne LaFleur1,3 1 Informatics, Decision Enhancement, and Surveillance (IDEAS) Center, VA Salt Lake City Health Care System, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America, 2 University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America, 3 University of Utah College of Pharmacy, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. * [email protected]
Abstract OPEN ACCESS Citation: Gundlapalli AV, Nelson RE, Haroldsen C, Carter ME, LaFleur J (2015) Correlates of Initiation of Treatment for Chronic Hepatitis C Infection in United States Veterans, 2004–2009. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0132056. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0132056 Editor: Naglaa H. Shoukry, University of Montreal Hospital Research Center (CRCHUM), CANADA Received: January 10, 2015 Accepted: June 9, 2015 Published: July 13, 2015 Copyright: This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. Data Availability Statement: Analyses were performed using raw data that are available only within the US Department of Veterans Affairs firewall in a secure research environment, the VA Informatics and Computing Infrastructure (VINCI). In order to comply with VA privacy and data security policies and regulatory constraints, only aggregate summary statistics and results of analyses are permitted to be removed from the data warehouse for publication. The authors have provided detailed results of these analyses in the paper. These restrictions are in place in order to maintain patient privacy and confidentiality. Access to these data can be granted to persons who
We describe the rates and predictors of initiation of treatment for chronic hepatitis C (HCV) infection in a large cohort of HCV positive Veterans seen in U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2009. In addition, we identify the relationship between homelessness among these Veterans and treatment initiation. Univariate and multivariable Cox Proportional Hazards regression models with timevarying covariates were used to identify predictors of initiation of treatment with pegylated interferon alpha plus ribavirin. Of the 101,444 HCV treatment-naïve Veterans during the study period, rates of initiation of treatment among homeless and non-homeless Veterans with HCV were low and clinically similar (6.2% vs. 7.4%, p0.1. Variables were added one at a time, and all previously included variables were retested at each iteration; those with p-values
