Quality of Life among Multiple Sclerosis Patients

Introduction and MS is one of the progressive and chronic demyelinative disorders involving active members of society. The study of quality of life in these patients could decrease relieve some disabilities and promotes residual abilities to maximal levels. Regarding relatively high prevalence of MS in Mazandaran province, this study was designed to measure the quality of life in Multiple sclerosis patients living in Mazandaran Province. In this discriptive study, the community of research included members of Mazandaran Multiple Sclerosis Association (MMSA). The census sampling method was used. The volunteers (101 patients) were assessed from october 2005 to March 2006. Assessment tool for data collection was standard questionnaire SF-36. This questionnaire consists of 36 questions and its validity has already been determined in many countries including Iran and it has high reliability (alpha chronbach 0.77-0.90). Clinical manifestations and the severity of the disease were evaluated with history and physical examination taken by Neurologist and using EDSS criteria. The results showed that 76% of the patients were females and 26% were males. The age range was 18-60 years (mean age 33.27 ± 8.31). The emergence of disease was at age 12-54 years (mean age 27.12 ± 8.03). About %7 of the patients had positive family history of multiple sclerosis. The mean score (based on 100) of general health, physical health, mental health, vivacity, social health, and physical pain were, respectively, 41.34 ± 10.22, 54.75 ± 30.25, 53.25 ± 22.03, 54.75 ± 24.44, 56.62 ± 20.96, and 35.75 ± 31.68.. In this study, the quality of life was relatively good in all aspects. This may be due to mildness of disease in majority of the patients, low age at time of disease emergence and shorter duration of disease.