Effectiveness of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program on Functional Disability of Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

Background and Aim Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an unpredictable disease that can change individuals' lifestyle. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program on functional disability of patients with MS. Methods & Materials The is an experimental study with pre-test/post-test/follow up design using control group. The study population consisted of all male and female patients with MS living in Neyshabur county, Iran. Of these, 47 were selected using a convenience sampling technique and randomly assigned into two groups of intervention (n=22) and control (n=25). The intervention group received MBSR therapy for 8 sessions, while the control group received no intervention. The follow-up was performed after one month. Subjects’ functional disability was measured by using the World Health Organization Disability Assessment questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS v.21 software usingrepeated measurements Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Ethical Considerations This study obtained its ethical approval from the Research Ethics Committee of Neyshabur University of Medical Sciences (code: IR. NUMS.REC.1397.004) Results The results of univariate ANOVA showed the significant effect of time and the interaction effect of time and group on functional disability of samples. The results of between-group ANOVA a significant difference between the intervention and control groups in functional disability (p <0.05). Pairwise comparison of the interaction effect of time and group showed a significant difference between the pre-test, post-test and follow-up scores (P = 0.001), but no significant difference was reported between the post-test and follow-up scores. Conclusion The MBSR program could reduce the functional disability in patients with MS due to ease of treatment, faster patient education, and the short duration of intervention sessions.

Keywords

• mindfulness-based stress reduction
• functional disability
• multiple sclerosis