The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in Pain Self-Efficacy, Fatigue, Life Expectancy and Depression in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS): A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

Objective: The present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy in pain self-efficacy, fatigue, life expectancy and depression in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods: In a semi-experimental research with a control group pretest-posttest design, 68 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) were selected through convenience sampling from neurologists’ clinic, medical treatment centers and Razavi Khorasan Multiple Sclerosis ‎Association‎ and were then assigned into two experimental and control groups. The experimental group subjects received ten 2-hour weekly sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy, but the control group subjects did not receive such a treatment. In the pretest and posttest, Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ), Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), Snyder ‎Adult Hope Scale (AHS)‎ ‎and Beck Depression Inventory - Second Edition (BDI-II) were applied for all subjects. The data were analyzed using the analysis of covariance method and t-test. Results: The results revealed that cognitive-behavioral therapy significantly leads to enhanced pain self-efficacy (P=0.001) and life expectancy (P=0.001) and reduced fatigue (P=0.02) and depression (P=0.003) in the experimental group compared to the control group. Conclusion: Cognitive-behavioral therapy is effective in improving pain self-efficacy, life expectancy, fatigue and depression among patients with multiple sclerosis.