title: Association of social support with quality of life in patients with polyneuropathy.
abstract: The aim of this study was to examine the impact of social support on quality of life (QoL) in patients with polyneuropathy. One hundred and fifty-four patients with polyneuropathy were enrolled from a neuromuscular clinic. The QoL Instrument and the Medical Outcome Study-Social Support Survey (MOS-SSS) were used to assess QoL and social support, respectively. Disease severity and clinical factors were also assessed. Neuropathy patients had a lower QoL compared to a previously published normative sample (p < 0.0001) and an MOS-SSS comparable to other patients with chronic disease. Social support correlated weakly with the self esteem and emotional well being mental health dimensions (rs :0.20-0.38) but not the physical health QoL (PH-QoL) domains. Physical and mental QoL also correlated significantly with presence of pain (rs : -0.39 and -0.42, respectively) and number of autonomic symptoms (rs : -0.39 and -0.30, respectively). Social support independently predicts MH-QoL when controlling for age, gender, pain, and the Toronto Clinical Neuropathy Score (TCNS; p < 0.0001). TCNS and gender are independently related to PH-QoL (p < 0.05). This study demonstrates that improved social support serves as an independent predictor of MH-QoL when controlling for age, gender, pain, and severity of neuropathy. Future studies examining the effects of improving social support on QoL in patients with polyneuropathy are recommended.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Sarah K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Maxwell
authors.forename: Carolina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Barnett
authors.forename: Seint
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kokokyi
authors.forename: Joanne C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Leung
authors.forename: Jingjie J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Vera
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Bril
authors.forename: Hans D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Katzberg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002170:Canada; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011115:Polyneuropathies / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D011788:Quality of Life; D012016:Reference Values; D012944:Social Support; D055815:Young Adult