Objective: the aim of this systematic review was to summarize the coping strategies utilized by people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS) and the association of these strategies with mood symptoms, quality of life, fatigue and disability in pwMS.
Methods: search in the literature was performed across electronic databases of PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. No time constraint was applied for searching across the databases. Manual search was also performed on the list of references of the retrieved papers. Two authors independently evaluated the retrieved citations based on predetermined inclusion criteria in two screening stages. This systematic review followed Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) guidelines for cross-sectional research. The findings related to the coping patterns against MS as well as the relationship between the patterns and MS symptoms were extracted and synthesized.
Findings: A total of 2390 records were identified. After removing duplicates and based on screening, 39 papers met the eligibility criteria for qualitative synthesis, and they were evaluated in terms of quality of study. When comparing genders, women used more religious coping, social support seeking, and positive coping compared to men. Depression and anxiety were associated with maladaptive and emotion-oriented coping strategies. The patients who used positive and problem solving oriented coping strategies had a better score of quality of life. Disability and fatigue were associated with applying avoidance and maladaptive coping strategies.
Conclusion: the findings of this review suggest that understanding the relationship between coping strategies and quality of life as well as the symptoms related to the disease is important to understand development of psychological interventions adopted by specialists to support these patients.
Keywords: Coping strategies; Mood symptoms; Multiple sclerosis; Systematic review.
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