the investigation relationship among physical functioning impairment with fatigue, psychological symptoms and body mass index in women with multiple sclerosis

abstract aim and background: multiple sclerosis is a chronic neurological disorder which is more prevalent in women than men. therefore, the aim of present study was to evaluate the relationship physical functioning impairment (as criterion variable) with fatigue, psychological symptoms and body mass index (as predictive variables) in the women suffering from this disease. methods and materials: in a cross sectional study, sampling was performed on 114 patients by consecutive method who were evaluated by using demographic variables list, physical dimension of short form health survey questionnaire, fatigue severity scale, depression, anxiety, stress scale and body mass index. data were analyzed by pearson correlation coefficient and hierarchical regression. findings: the results indicated a significant, strong correlation of physical functioning with fatigue, depression, anxiety and stress variables (p<0.0001). body mass index had the lowest correlation coefficient with physical functioning (p<0.05). the results of hierarchical regression showed the total variance of all variables in final step as 0.58 (r 2 ) (p<0.0001; f=18.20). moreover, additional exclusive variance was 0.39 at this step after controlling demographic variables such as age, education level and duration of the disease. furthermore, in final step, variables of fatigue (β= - 0.25; p<0.0001) and anxiety (β= - 0.44; p<0.0001) could significantly predict physical functioning impairment of women. conclusions: results indicated that fatigue and anxiety can affect the physical functioning impairment in women. thus, the screening of women with these symptoms and appropriate treatment is recommended.