The Contribution of Illness Beliefs, Coping Strategies, and Social Support to Perceived Physical Health and Fatigue in Multiple Sclerosis

Coping with stress during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic by Turkish people with Multiple Sclerosis: The relationship between perceived stress and quality of life

“…QoL is impaired in RRMS patients for many reasons and pandemic could aggravate this. Changes in coping strategies used individually for managing the stress of new pandemic disease in pwMS also may affect the QoL ( Bassi et al., 2021 ). In our study group, where the number of patients with high perceived stress levels was quite low, we found that mental QoL was negatively affected in patients with high perceived stress.…”

Effectiveness of film as a health communication tool to improve perceptions and attitudes in multiple sclerosis

“…Quantitative measurements such as the Brief IPQ provides the ability to complete traditional statistical analysis and show measurable changes with intervention and have been previously used to show association pathways between perceptions and health outcomes. 2 , 3 Qualitative measurements and focus groups allow for a more nuanced understanding of patient perspectives by allowing participants to express their own thoughts rather than being restrained by assigned answers to a questionnaire. Categorizing free responses from a focus group into themes allows trends of important influences to be seen and has previously been used to understand patient experiences and perceptions in MS. 16 , 23 Using both techniques, we were able to show both statistical significance as well as freely reported themes of improvement in perceptions of understanding and treatment control.…”

“…The variable course and progression of MS presents challenges, and social determinants of well-being include illness perceptions. An individual’s illness perceptions(IP) figure prominently as a complex, multidimensional process comprising cognitive representations or beliefs that patients have about their illness, 1 which recently have been found to be associated with treatment adherence, management, and functional recovery in MS. 2 , 3 …”

“…The variable course and progression of MS presents challenges, and social determinants of well-being include illness perceptions. An individual's illness perceptions(IP) figure prominently as a complex, multidimensional process comprising cognitive representations or beliefs that patients have about their illness, 1 which recently have been found to be associated with treatment adherence, management, and functional recovery in MS. 2,3 IP may be influenced by the patient's own beliefs about the disease, 4 which in turn may be influenced by his or her cultural background. We have previously shown that Hispanics/Latinx diagnosed with MS are more likely to believe MS is the result of stress and quote cultural distress syndromes (incorporation of cultural factors that may influence disease).…”

General and Illness-specific Predictors of Adaptation to Chronic Illnesses: Cognitive Appraisals and Illness-related Beliefs

“…Additionally, we wanted to investigate which illness-related appraisals and IRBs are universal predictors of adaptation outcomes across different illness diagnostic categories and which are illness-speci c. This study expands on previous research on the predictors of psychological adjustment to chronic illness by combining both CA and IRBs in one exploratory model, in contrast to previous studies that predominantly analyzed the role of these two cognitive concepts separately (e.g., Alhurani et al, 2019;Bassi et al, 2019). In this study we have also broadened the concept of cognitive illness representation by including some new beliefs in addition to the ve categories of IRBs as conceptualized in the CSM.…”