Journal of North Khorasan

Abstract Background & Objective: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the most common chronic neurological diseases in young adults and like any other chronic disease it affects different aspects and quality of the patient's life. This study was designed to measure the quality of life in multiple sclerosis patients referring to M.S Clinic in Ghaem Hospital in Mashhad during 2009. Materials & Methods: In this descriptive study, the community of research included 62 patients with multiple sclerosis referring to the M.S Clinic. The research tools included questionnaires of demographic information for patients and multiple sclerosis quality of life (MSQOL-54) questionnaires. Clinical manifestations and the severity of the disease were evaluated through taking medical histories as well as physical examination taken by a neurologist using EDSS criteria. Results: The results showed that 81% of the patients were females and 19% were males, 75% of the MS patients were married and 25% were single. Mean EDSS score was 2.3. The age range was 18-50 years (mean age 33.27 ± 8.31). The average quality of life score in 12 domains of MSQOL-54 was 56.2. The lowest score for quality of life was related to the restriction of physical health domains. The severity of disabity was significantly associated with quality of physical health domain (P<0.05). But the EDSS was not related with the mental health score (P>0.05). Conclusion: Our study clearly demonstrates that the disability status has an impact mainly on physical domains of life quality. In this study, the quality of life was relatively good in all aspects. This may be due to the mildness of the disease in the majority of the patients and/or the short duration of the disease.