[Multiple Sclerosis and stressful thought habit]

ABSTRACT

Multiple Sclerosis [MS] is a demyelinating progressive disease which afflicts central nervous system. The cause remains uncertain but various factors such as infection, stress, immune deficiency and environmental factors may contribute to this disease. As a chronic disease with sudden and unpredictable attack, MS results in various stresses in patients' lives. It seems that the more we know the extent of stress in patients' lives, the more we can control it. The present study aimed at determining the extent of stress in patients suffering from MS who have referred to MS Association of Iran. A cross sectional study was conducted using sequential sampling to recruit 600 patients suffering from MS. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire [Coudron questionnaire]. Descriptive statistics and oneway analysis of variance were used to analysis the data. 79.3% of the patients had stressful thought habits and 76.3% of them had stressful context in their private lives. Results of one-way analysis of variance showed a significant relationship between the amount of stressful thought habits and age [P=0.01], employment status [P=0.00] and duration of disease [P=0.000]. Since the findings of this research revealed high stress of MS patients, identifying stress sources to improve their life qualities, providing appropriate education for coping and adapting with chronic disease related stress, seems to be necessary