THE ASSESSMENT OF DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS ON MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS PATIENTSÃ¢Â€Â™ QUALITY OF LIFE

<p>Abdollah Almasian Kia</p>

THE ASSESSMENT OF DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS ON MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS PATIENTSÃ¢Â€Â™ QUALITY OF LIFE

Abdollah Almasian Kia

Iran University of Medical Sciences, Iran

: Int J Ment Health Psychiatry

Abstract

Objectives: MS Patients experience lower quality of life than the general population. Improvement can be made to the quality of life through understanding its effective factors. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of MS characteristics on patients’ quality of life. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 171 patients enrolled in the study. The HRQoL were assessed through Persian version of MSQoL54 questionnaire. To measure patients’ disability status, we used Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS). The analyses were done using Stata software (version 12.0) at a significance level of 0.05. Results: The average score of Physical and Mental quality of life of patients was estimated to be (60.9 ± 22. 3) and (59.5 ± 21.4) respectively. The relation between quality of life and disease relapse was significant. MS type had a strong relationship with severity of the disease and physical quality of life; and a weak relation with mental quality of life. There was also a moderate negative correlation (p = - 0.42) and a weak negative correlation (p =- 0.23) between severity of the disease and physical and mental quality of life respectively. Severity of the disease and relapse led to 36 % and 16 % of changes in physical and mental quality of life respectively. Conclusions: To sum up, our result showed that disease characteristics have significantly affected both dimensions of quality of life. It is therefore suggested that health care providers should be aware of MS characteristics to be more successful in improving MS patients’ quality of life.