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demographic factors, such as marital status, level perceptions; (5) vitality; (6) social functioning;
of education and employment status, with HRQoL (7) role limitations due to emotional problems;
in patients with chronic diseases. [6,7] For example, (8) general mental health. These subscales can be
employed patients have reported better emotional well- divided into 2 main categories: physical or mental
being and married patients have reported better sexual components. The scores in every subscale and each
function than that of patients who were unemployed or main category ranged from 0 to 100. Patients with
unmarried, respectively. [6] the lowest scores had a worse QoL. The SF-36 was
translated into Persian in 2005. [11] The Persian version
HRQoL measures a patient’s level of satisfaction with of the SF-36 possesses good psychometric properties,
life. Knowing patient outcomes and level of satisfaction and it has good internal consistency (between 0.65 and
[3]
is essential for the success of treatments provided by 0.90) as well as adequate Cronbach’s alpha reliability.
a health-care provider. The aim of this descriptive- The results of the comparison of the known groups,
comparative study is to assess the HRQoL in patients with convergent validity and principal-component-factor-
MS. analysis showed that the Persian iteration of the SF-
36 has sufficient validity. The authors of the present
METHODS
study concluded that the Persian iteration of the SF-36
can be used during clinical practice and research.
[11]
A total of 100 patients with MS, aged between
16 and 65 years, were selected for participation SPSS software version 16 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL) was
in this study. The 2010 revision of the McDonald used for the statistical analysis of the data. Descriptive
criteria was used to confirm a diagnosis of MS. statistics were used to summarize the basic features
[8]
The participants were selected from a pool of all of the collected data. Group differences were assessed
MS outpatients who were referred to the medical using MANOVA, ANOVA and an independent t-test. A
clinics at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences P ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
during 2012 using the convenient non-probability
sampling method. Patients who received high RESULTS
doses of methylprednisolone administered as pulse Included in this study were 80 women and 20 men
therapy during the past 3 months as well as patients with a mean age of 35.1 ± 9.5 years. In this study,
with chronic co-morbid diseases such as cancer, 62% of the patients had relapsing-remitting MS, 25%
diabetes, epilepsy, renal failure, and heart disease, had secondary progressive MS, 9% had primary
or major psychological problems, such as psychosis, progressive MS and 4% had a clinically isolated
were excluded from participation in the study. The syndrome. The mean duration of disease between the
severity of illness was measured using the Expanded first diagnosis of MS and participation in the study
Disability Status Scale (EDSS). The EDSS scores
[9]
for 90% of our patients were fewer than 5, and the was 6.4 ± 3.8 years. In this study, 80% of the patients
were women, 68% of the patients were married, 30%
mean score was 2.41 ± 1.91 when measured during of the patients were employed, 30% of the patients had
the assessment of HRQoL.
completed primary school, 38% of the patients had
A research assistant explained the confidentiality, completed high school and 32% of the patients had
objectives and procedures of the study to each attained a university degree. The mean and standard
patient before participants gave their oral consent to deviation of the total SF-36 score, the physical
volunteer in the study. The study protocol complied component and the mental component were calculated
with ethical codes issued by the Psychology and for all participants. The mean scores for the full test,
Counseling Organization of the Islamic Republic of the physical component and the mental component
Iran. were 57.53 ± 23.27, 59.48 ± 24.63 and 49.26 ± 23.15,
respectively. Table 1 shows the descriptive data of the
Measurements eight subscales of HRQoL in this study and a previous
All the patients in this study completed a study conducted in Iran. [11] The first row of Table 1
demographic form and the Medical Outcomes Study shows the mean (SD) of the current study, and the
Short-Form (SF-36). The SF-36 is a universal self- second row shows the results of the SF-36 gathered
report questionnaire used to evaluate the effect from 4,163 individuals who were randomly selected
of medical treatments on quality of life (QoL). [10] in 2005 from the general population of Tehran. [11] To
The SF-36 comprises 36 items, which measure compare the current study results with the Iranian
eight subscales of HRQoL, including: (1) physical normal population results, we computed the 95%
functioning; (2) role limitations due to physical confidence interval (CI) for the mean of the scores of
health problems; (3) bodily pain; (4) general health each of the eight subscales assessed using the Tehran

58 Neuroimmunol Neuroinflammation | Volume 3 | March 14, 2016