Quality of life and its affecting factors among patients with multiple sclerosis: a cross-sectional study in northwest Iran

Background: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is one of the most important diseases due to its adverse clinical, social and economic consequences for affected people. Objectives: This study tried to assess the quality of life of the patients suffering from Multiple Sclerosis in East Azerbaijan. Methods: This cross-sectional study used the Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life-54 (MSQOL-54) questionnaire for interviewing 300 randomly selected MS patients in East Azarbaijan province, Iran. The independent T-test, ANOVA and Tukey post hoc test were used to examine the relationship between demographic variables and quality of life, and all analyses were performed using SPSS19. Results: The quality of life score among the MS patients is 48.22. The "life satisfaction" is the best and "physical role limitation" is the worst quality of life aspect. There were significant relationships between marital status, education level, employment status, age of symptoms onset and years of illness with quality of life (P<0.05). Conclusion: The quality of life of the MS patients in East Azarbaijan province is lower than other parts of Iran and much lower than OECD countries.