Multiple sclerosis and cognitive behavioral therapy: an overview of the outcomes (PP-12)

Multiple sclerosis is a neurological progressing disease that affects all aspects of patients’ life. Patients who suffer from multiple sclerosis usually receive clinical treatment depending on the disease stage. However, not all clinical interventions could help patients since the disease not only affects patients’ physical health but also it influences patients’ psychosocial well-being. As such psychological interventions in treatment of MS are very relevant. Among psychological interventions, cognitive behavioral therapy was used more frequently. This paper reviews studies that utilized cognitive behavioral therapy aiming to impact specific outcomes among MS patients. We reviewed the English biomedical literature using the PubMed search engine and identified 35 papers by the keywords multiple sclerosis and cognitive behavioral therapy (or treatment, intervention, program) in the title of publications without any restrictions. In all 35 papers were retrieved covering the literature from 2000 to September 2024. Of these 2 papers were irrelevant and thus were excluded from the analysis. The remaining 33 papers were carefully assessed and the following results were indicated: 13 papers used cognitive behavioral therapy for the treatment of depression, anxiety stress, and emotional distress, 5 papers were on insomnia (sleep difficulty), 3 papers were on fatigue, 3 papers were on quality of life, 3 papers were on pain, 3 papers on coping strategies, 1 review paper, 1 case report, and 1 paper on development a cognitive behavioral intervention. Interestingly, 6 papers out of 33 papers (18%) were reported by the Iranian investigators. The cognitive behavioral therapy usually focuses on unhelpful thoughts, planning to problem-solve to change behaviors, and planning for pleasurable activities, leading to help patients to overcome physical health problems or reduce such sufferings among these patients. Most studies reported that they offered 5 sessions of group therapy, or they offered the service through web-based arrangements. In all instances, the findings showed that the cognitive behavioral therapy was effective in selected outcomes reported here.