2025/02/24 by Kayla E. Gomes, Kaitlin E Riegler, Heather M. DelMastro +3 · 1 voice
Health Professions · Medicine · #Cancer survivorship and care #Multiple Sclerosis Research Studies #Occupational Therapy Practice and Research
paper · doi:10.7224/1537-2073.2024-045
openalex publication_date 2025/02/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
Background: Many individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) have difficulty walking, which may prompt a physical therapy (PT) referral. Psychosocial factors, including mood, pain, and social support, may affect patients’ participation and overall success in meeting PT goals; however, this has yet to be examined in MS. This study aimed to explore the associations between walking-related PT goal attainment and psychosocial factors. Methods: Participants (N = 41) were individuals with MS from a larger study who engaged in PT per usual care during a 2-year study window. They had at least 1 walking-related goal in their PT plan of care, which could be based on subjective (eg, Multiple Sclerosis Walking Scale-12) or objective measurement (eg, 6-Minute Walk Test). Examined psychosocial factors included impact of pain and fatigue, depression and anxiety symptom severity, and social support. Group differences were examined using bivariate analyses. Results: Participants who met all their walking-related PT goals had lower levels of pain impact (14.15 ± 5.22 vs 19.14 ± 5.29; P = .004; d = 0.95) and symptoms of depression (5.45 ± 3.53 vs 7.71 ± 3.51; P = .046; d = 0.64) and greater social support (median: 14.00 vs 12.00; P = .019 d = 0.79). Conclusions: Caregivers for people with MS showed relatively high resilience levels, positively correlating with quality of life and reduced caregiver burden. Furthermore, resilience correlated inversely with neuroticism and positively with extroversion and conscientiousness. Future research should target personalized interventions, particularly for caregivers with low resilience.