Quality of life assessment among multiple sclerosis patients in Saudi Arabia

OBJECTIVES: To determine the quality of life (QoL) among multiple sclerosis (MS) patients in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was carried out to assess the QoL of MS patients during the period from November 2016 to May 2017. Patients were recruited from tertiary hospitals in 5 regions in the kingdom. Clinical and demographic data were collected and information on patients’ health status using the self-report SF-36 questionnaire to assess QoL. The Patient Determined Disease Steps (PDDS) was used to measure disability. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Mann–Whitney test, the Kruskal Wallis test and Spearman’s coefficient correlation. RESULTS: From the 598 MS patients studied, 384 (64.2%) were female. The mean score for males was higher than females in all SF-36 QoL subscales. The mean age was 32.4 years (SD=8.4). The mean duration of illness was 6.5 years. Patients had the lowest scores in role motioning/emotional scale (mean=42.6, SD=43.3). The PDDS was negatively correlated with all SF-36 QoL subscales. Self Report-36 QoL for MS patients differed significantly through demographic characteristics at a level of significance of 0.05. CONCLUSIONS: Multiple Sclerosis patients have a low QoL score and need more comprehensive management by their treating physicians. Further development of the registration will provide access to the entire population of MS patients and help comprehensively analyze the factors that affect the quality of their lives.