What is it about?
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. MS has major consequences for the physical and mental health of people with MS: Frequent are, for example, visual disturbances, paralysis, disturbances of bladder and intestinal function, fatigue or psychological impairments. Nevertheless little is known about how MS patients can handle their lives in order to influence the disease in a beneficial way. This study investigated whether strategies for goal selection and pursuit adapted to the individual health impairments can be a starting point. Relationships between such strategies, resources (e. g. cognitive or social ressources) and psychological variables, that are supposed to have a substantial impact on the immune system, were examined in 177 MS patients. As expected, there were relationships between these strategies and variables of psychoneuroimmunological relevance. Also in line with the hypotheses the strategies corresponded to the amount of individual resources. The strategies seem to be associated with beneficial values in variables of psychoneuroimmunological relevance and may attenuate disease-related loss of resources.
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Why is it important?
In addition to their physical impairments, MS patients are often affected by psychological impairments (e.g. depression, stress). However, these psychological impairments can also affect the function of the immune system and thus have a negative impact on the disease. It is therefore important to find out more about how MS patients can manage their lives with disease-related disabilities in a way that minimises the impact of these disabilities on mental and physical functioning.
Perspectives
A promising approach for improving the situation of MS patients would therefore be to direct interventions preventively towards reducing the probability of the occurrence of psychoneuroimmunologically relevant negative factors (e.g. depression) or promoting psychoneuroimmunologically relevant positive factors (e.g. subjective well-being).
Veronika Chakraverty
Universitat zu Koln
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Lebensgestaltung und Gesundheit Multiple-Sklerose-Betroffener: Die Rolle ressourcenadaptiver Zielauswahl und Zielverfolgung für subjektives Wohlbefinden, Stresserleben und Selbstwirksamkeitserwartung, Zeitschrift für Neuropsychologie, November 2018, Hogrefe Publishing Group,
DOI: 10.1024/1016-264x/a000233.
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