Assessment and Management of Biopsychosocial and Educational Needs: Developing and Implementing Educational Guidelines for patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Background : Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic illness that causes physical, cognitive, and psychosocial problems. Patients should be educated in conjunction with biopsychosocial evaluation and management. The objective of this work was to assess the effect of implementing educational guidelines on meeting biopsychosocial and educational needs of patients with multiple sclerosis. Research design: A quasi-experimental design (pre-post and study-control group) study was utilized to meet the objective of this study and investigate study hypothesis. Setting: At MS outpatient clinic affiliated to Ain Shams University Hospital, Cairo, Egypt. Subjects: For this investigation, a sample of eighty adult patients was selected from the previously described settings, and 40 patients were randomly allocated to each of the two equal groups (the study and the control). Results: There was a significant increase of total satisfactory level of knowledge at post-implementation phases among study group at p≤ 0.001 as compared to control group participants. There was a highly significant reduction of overall physical symptom alteration among study category as compared to control one patients post implementation at p <0.001. Significant improvement of the level of dependency among study group as compared to control group after educational implementation at p =0.005. Also, there were significant reductions among study group subjects in comparison to controls regarding total mean scores of depressive, anxiety, and stress symptoms at post implementation (p= 0.009, 0.024 & 0.027 respectively). Moreover, the findings revealed significant reduction regarding total mean scores of social alterations among study group as compared to controls at post implementation phase at p=0.039. Conclusion: the educational guidelines were effective in improving knowledge, self-care practices, physical alterations, level of dependence, psychosocial alterations among study group in comparison to controls after its implementation. Recommendation. dissemination of study Arabic booklet suggested to developed and available for all cases with MS.