Challenges in the Daily Living Activities of Patients with Multiple Sclerosis: A Qualitative Content Analysis

Abstract

<span><strong>Background: </strong><span>Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic nervous system disease with a wide range of<br /><span>symptoms that affect the self-care ability of patients in daily activities of life; the patients afflicted<br /><span>with this disease face with many challenges. This study was conducted to explore the activities of daily<br /><span>living (ADL) challenges of these patients.<br /><span><strong>Methods: </strong><span>In this conventional content analysis study, fourteen MS patients who were selected<br /><span>purposively from Iran MS Society in Jahrom (Iran) participated in 2018. Data were gathered using<br /><span>semi-structured and in-depth interviews. A total of 14 interviews were conducted. These data were<br /><span>analyzed using MAXQDA 10 Software and the Graneheim and Lundman method.<br /><span><strong>Results: </strong><span>Analysis of data led to extraction of the main theme “fear of ambiguous future of diseases"<br /><span>as the most important daily living challenge in MS patients. This challenges were categorized in four<br /><span>main categories: 1) confrontation to physical, emotional, psychological and behavioral changes, 2) fear<br /><span>of becoming crippled, 3) tolerance of financial burden of the disease, and 4) confrontation to culturalsocial wrong beliefs.<br /><span><strong>Conclusion: </strong><span>The results of this study showed that people with MS face a number of ADL challenges.<br /><span>Fear of an ambiguous future leads to problems in ADL of patients. Therefore, considering the ADL<br /><span>challenges, health care personnel especially nurses, family members and social organizations can<br /><span>improve ADL and compromise patients with the disease as much as possible by providing conditions<br /><span>for application of the self-care activities and their implementation by patients.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /></span></span></span></span></span>