Dr. Van Kuiken on factors influencing first-line medication for OAB

In this video, Michelle E. Van Kuiken, MD, highlights findings from the study, “Factors influencing medication selection for management of overactive bladder: Trends and insights from AUA Quality Registry,” for which she served as the lead author. Van Kuiken is an assistant professor of urology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and an associate program director of UCSF Urology Graduate Medical Education.

Video Transcript:

Probably one of the most meaningful findings was that insurance type did influence the choice of medication first prescribed by urologists for overactive bladder. When we were presenting these data at some of the meetings, people would come up to us, and say, "of course, this happens to me all the time." It was impactful to at least be able to put some actual numbers behind this experience that everybody's having. We did find that patients with private insurance were more likely to receive a beta-3 agonist as choice of first medication prescribed as opposed to patients who are uninsured or have Medicaid insurance. We also found that race and ethnicity of the patients impacted the choice of first medication prescribed. And interestingly, this even persisted after controlling for insurance type. There is some type of bias that exists there, so potential areas for intervention. Other findings were that gender did not impact the choice of medication that was first prescribed. And we found that as patients were older, they were more likely to receive a beta-3 agonist as the first choice of medication prescribed for overactive bladder.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.