Abstract
BackgroundMultiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease and is one of the most costly medical conditions that imposed families with catastrophic health expenditures. There is an increasing trend in using alternative medicines including, dietary supplements, herbs, vitamins, and minerals. To date, the association between dietary as well as herbal supplements and QoL in MS patients is under researched; thus, this study aimed to assess the association between the self-reported supplement used and QoL between MS patients.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted on patients with MS referring to Shahid Kazemi Pharmacy, based in the city of Tehran, Iran, as a national pharmacy providing specialized pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical care to patients. The Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life-54 (MSQoL-54) tools was performed to evaluate MS patients QoL.ResultsA total number of 382 patients with MS participated in this study. They include 89 (23.3%) men and 293 (76.7%) women, aged 40 ± 10.9 years old. The overall score of the MSQoL-54 questionnaire was 41.58 out of 100. Physical health composite (PHC) and mental health composite (MHC) were 69.60 and 62.99 from 100, respectively. This study revealed that 76.4% of patients used at least one vitamin daily; 92.4% of patients do not receive any herbal product. Vitamin D is the most widely used supplement, followed by calcium, while vitamin C is the least consumed. No correlation was observed regarding supplement use and overall QoL, PHC, or MHC. There were no significant differences between QoL’s dimensions score in patients who used supplements. The results showed that increasing the number of supplements used did not relate to overall QoL, PHC, or MHC. In addition, there was not any correlation between the duration used of supplements and QoL’s dimensions score in MS patients (p-value> 0.05).ConclusionsThe dietary supplement appears to be popular among MS patients. The study results showed that the number of supplementations and their long-term use in patients with MS were not associated with higher QoL. Similarly, the herbal supplements have failed to improve QoL.
Highlights
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease and is one of the most costly medical conditions that imposed families with catastrophic health expenditures
Over 15 months, a total number of 382 MS patients agreed to participate in the study, including 89 (23.3%) men and 293 (76.7%) women with the mean age of 40 ± 10.9 years
This study suggests that daily supplementation with herbal, vitamin C, iron products, and calcium can significantly associate with a different part of quality of life (QoL) dimensions
Summary
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease and is one of the most costly medical conditions that imposed families with catastrophic health expenditures. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is known as the major autoimmune demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) and even one of the main causes of disabilities, high healthcare costs, and mortality in young adults [1,2,3]. The reported cases of MS in 2016 have shown 2,221,188 patients living with MS across the world [4]. Patients with MS often reported the role limitations due to a wide variety of MS symptoms such as spasms, ataxia, vertigo, fatigue, sexual dysfunction, pain, vision loss, paresis, urinary or fecal sphincter dysfunction, and tremor [6, 7]. MS negatively impacts cognitive and psychological functions, impacting their health-related quality of life (QoL) [8,9,10]
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