Impact of sense of coherence on quality of life in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Aim: Aiming at finding an effective way of empowering patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) to cope with their disease, the objective of the study was to explore the impact of sense of coherence (SOC) on their health-related quality of life (HRQoL).

Methods: A total of 134/150 eligible MS patients followed-up at the Department of Neurology of the University Medical Centre Maribor, Slovenia, completed a multiple sclerosis quality of life 54 questionnaire (MSQoL-54) for assessment of HRQoL, and SOC-13-item questionnaire for assessment of SOC in 2013. Multiple linear regression was used to analyze the association between the SOC score and mental and physical subscores of MSQoL-54 adjusted to disease-related and sociodemographic characteristics as potential confounders.

Results: In a univariate analysis SOC score proved to be the strongest predictor of mental subscore of MSQoL-54 (b = 0.834; p < 0.001) explaining 35.6% of its variance. When adjusted for confounders, it retained its position as the most important predictor (b = 0.758; p < 0.001). On the other hand, SOC score was a slightly less important predictor of physical subscore of MSQoL-54, being the fourth strongest factor (b = 0.582; p < 0.001) in univariate analysis explaining 19.1% of the variance; however, when adjusted for confounders, its importance slightly increased by becoming the third most important predictor (b = 0.508; p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Based on the results of the present study, we can propose SOC as an important and suitable intervention targeted outcome to consider in managing both aspects of MS difficulties.