Fatigue and associated factors in multiple sclerosis patients in Latvia

Sum mary. Back ground and ob jec tives. Fa tigue is one of the most com mon symp toms of
mul ti ple scle ro sis (MS). The aim of this study was to de ter mine the pres ence of fa tigue in MS
pa tients in Lat via and its re la tion to life style fac tors, neu ro log i cal dis abil ity and de pres sion.
Ma te rial and meth ods. This cross-sec tional study in cluded 117 par tic i pants (44 pa tients
with MS and 73 healthy con trol group). Ap plied re search in stru ments were: Ex panded Dis -
abil ity Sta tus Scale (EDSS), Pa tient Health Ques tion naire (PHQ-9), Fa tigue Se ver ity
Scale (FSS), and the gen eral ques tion naire for the col lec tion of socio-de mo graphic, life style
hab its and clin i cal data con structed for the pur poses of this study.
Re sults. Mean FSS score was 3.9±1.9 in MS group. 26 (59.1%) patients had FSS score of
3.8 or more and were clas si fied as a fa tigue group (MSF) while 18 (40.9%) patients had FSS
of 3.7 or less and were clas si fied as a non-fatigue (MSNF) group. There was sta tis ti cally sig -
nif i cant dif fer ence be tween MSF and MSNF groups con sid er ing PHQ-9 score (p=0.019),
FSS score (p<0.001) and EDSS score (p<0.001). Sig nif i cant cor re la tions of fa tigue with depres sion (r=0.48, p=0.001), fa tigue with neu ro log i cal dis abil ity (r=0.49, p=0.001) and fatigue with smok ing (r=0.29, p=0.054) were con firmed.
Con clu sions. Fa tigue is a com mon symptom in MS pa tients in Lat via. This study supports sig nif i cant as so ci a tion be tween fa tigue and clin i cal fac tors (dis abil ity, de pres sion) and
mod i fi able life style fac tor – smok ing