The quality of life in Ecuadorian patients with multiple sclerosis and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder and their association with anxiety, depression, fatigue, and disability

Background – MS and NMOSD are chronic demyelinating diseases related to demyelinating attacks on the central nervous system which limit quality of life and predisposes patients to developing anxiety and depression which, in turn, leads to a worsening of their disease. Methods – It is a cross-sectional and analytical study which was carried out at Hospital Carlos Andrade Marín (HCAM) in Quito, Ecuador. We included 151 patients in this study. The MSQOL-54 Scale Spanish version was used. The Hamilton Anxiety Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale were applied. Pearson’s correlation was performed to establish an association between two continuous variables. This study was approved by the ethics committee of the HCAM. Results – In our study, we found that the quality of life was more affected in NMOSD than MS patients (p < 0.005). NMOSD patients presented higher EDSS scores in relation to MS (p < 0.05). Anxiety and depression were frequent in both diseases. Mild anxiety was frequent in MS, whereas moderate and severe anxiety was common in NMOSD patients. Mild depression predominated in both pathologies. Fatigue was more frequent in MS than NMOSD (p < 0.01). We found that the younger NMOSD patients had lower scores of QoL. We found correlations between, degree of disability, fatigue, anxiety, and depression with the QoL of our patients in both MS and NMOSD. Conclusion – The presence of anxiety, depression, fatigue and a higher degree of disability was associated with a poorer quality of life in both diseases.