Assessment of the psychiatric symptoms and the adaptive functions in a sample of patients with multiple sclerosis

Background
Psychiatric comorbidity has been and should continue to be a major concern in the treatment of chronic neurological disorders. The identification of patients at risk for developing psychiatric disorders is important for prophylaxis. The treatment of such complications depends on the differentiation of psychiatric syndromes on the basis of psychopathology and course and the identification of specific related factors such as the role of treatment, personal factors, and psychological stress factors.
Aim
To study the various psychological, psychosocial, and sociodemographic variables that may affect the development of psychiatric impairment in patients with multiple sclerosis.
Methods
In total, 90 successive patients with multiple sclerosis were interviewed on the experience of illness and were assessed using the Defense Style Questionnaire, symptom checklist (SCL), and Self-Efficacy Questionnaires.
Results
(a) Patients had interpersonal sensitivity, followed by obsession, depression, somatization, phobic anxiety, anxiety, paranoid ideation, hostility, and the least psychoticism on the symptom checklist, (b) patients scored the highest on pseudo altruism and the lowest on displacement in the Defense Style Questionnaire, and (c) women had significantly higher scores on some SCL90 subscales and on somatization, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, and phobic anxiety subscales.
Conclusion
Patients with multiple sclerosis have to cope with a wide range of problems and develop coping defensive styles. Patients worried the most about low self-efficacy, especially those with an early age of onset. Patients who considered their illness as severe and who also had lowest self-efficacy scores had not only the worst pathology as evident from the highest SCL90 total, specifically depression and interpersonal sensitivity scores, but also the worst coping in terms of their defense style, as in autistic fantasy and passive aggression.