Personality styles and adherence to treatment in adult patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

There is evidence of some personality characteristics and traits being highly prevalent in people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The objective is to determine whether the personality style in adult patients with MS is associated with the adherence to pharmacological and neurorehabilitation treatments.

Method: cross-section study that included 56 adult patients with MS. Adherence to drug treatment was assessed using the Measure of Medication Adherence (MMA) scale, adherence to rehabilitation was measured using the Scale to Measure Adherence to the Neurorehabilitation (SMAN), personality styles were assessed using the Millon Index of Personality Styles (MIPS) inventory. For the analysis of the primary objective, an explanatory linear regression model was developed. Adherence variables were taken as continuous variables. Independent variables were incorporated to the model one at a time (stepwise analysis) adjusting for covariates (age, sex, EDSS, level of education, duration of the disease, treatment and comorbidities). The association of an independent variable with adherence was considered significant when its p was less than 0.05.

Results: The presence of pleasure-enhancing, pain-avoiding and confident/asserting personalities was significantly associated with an increase in adherence to drug treatment (p = 0.012, p = 0.022, p = 0.02, respectively), while the presence of other-nurturing, feeling-guided, and dutiful/conforming personalities was significantly associated with lower adherence (p = 0.024, p = 0.018 and p = 0.029, respectively). With regard to the adherence to neurorehabilitation, women had lower adherence compared to men, the pleasure-enhancing, pain-avoiding and confident/asserting personalities (p = 0.022, p = 0.016 and p = 0.024, respectively) were also significantly associated with an increase in the adherence to a neurorehabilitation treatment. The presence of other-nurturing and feeling-guided personalities was significantly associated with lower adherence to neurorehabilitation (p = 0.024 and p = 0.018, respectively).

Conclusion: there are personality traits in MS patients that were independently associated with the adherence to a pharmacological treatment, as well as to neurorehabilitation. Getting to know these aspects will enable us to develop more individualized strategies in order to foster adherence to treatments in patients with MS.

Keywords: Adherence to treatment; multiple sclerosis; personality styles.