Objectives: To investigate executive complaints and objective executive deficits and their relations to both depression and neurological function in multiple sclerosis (MS).
Materials and methods: One hundred and twenty MS patients participating in multidisciplinary rehabilitation underwent assessment with the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), neuropsychological tests of executive function, self-report measures of executive function (BRIEF-A), and depression (BDI-II).
Results: Multivariate regression analysis showed that moderate depression and above (BDI-II > 20) significantly predicted a high degree of subjective executive complaints. Multivariate regression analysis showed that EDSS scores above 4.3 significantly predicted executive cognitive deficit, measured by neuropsychological tests.
Conclusion: Among the study variables, depression was the strongest predictor of executive complaints. A high degree of neurological disability was the strongest predictor for executive deficit, measured by neuropsychological tests.
Keywords: Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Adult; depression; executive complaints; executive deficit; multiple sclerosis; neurological disability.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.