The relationship of psychological factors, demographic features and disease characteristics with self-management of multiple sclerosis patients

Introduction: self-management is an important act of controlling the adverse outcomes in multiple sclerosis as a chronic and debilitating disease. this study was aimed to consider the relationship of psychological factors, demographic features and disease characteristics with self-management behaviors and predicting it among patients with multiple sclerosis.methods: in the correlational study, among the patients with multiple sclerosis who attended to the iranian multiple sclerosis association in tehran, 193 patients were selected by a purposeful compliance procedure. data were gathered with the multiple sclerosis self-management scale, the depression anxiety and stress scales and the demographical/disease characteristics questionnaire, then were analyzed by multiple regression in the stepwise method by spss 18. results: socioeconomic status and female gender had significantly positive relationship and role in prediction of self-management behaviors in patients with multiple sclerosis and also depression and anxiety had significantly negative relationship and role in prediction of self-management behaviors among these patients (f= (4,188)=36.61, p<0.001) and these four factors totally were explain 43% (r2=0.43) of self-management (p<0.001). literacy, marriage status, treatment type, age, disease duration and stress didn’t have a significant role in prediction of self-management behaviors among these patients (p>0.05).conclusion: depression and anxiety are important risk factors for decreased self-management among patients with multiple sclerosis. on the other hand, higher level of literacy and female gender are important factors for increased self-management among these patients. it is consequential, that pay attention to these factors in designing and implementing tailored programs of self-management and self-care promotion for controlling this disease.