Investigating the Relationship Between Verbal Fluency and Some Clinical Characteristics in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis

Background and Objective One of the types of cognitive impairments in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) is verbal fluency. Clinical characteristics affect verbal fluency. This study investigates the relationship between verbal fluency and some clinical characteristics in patients with MS.
Materials & Methods This cross-sectional descriptive study was performed on 71 patients with MS in Rofideh Rehabilitation Hospital. Patients were selected by convenience non-probability sampling method. The study tool included the Pittsburgh sleep quality questionnaire, fatigue severity scale, depression inventory-fast screen, and controlled oral word association test. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS software, version 18. The linear regression model was fitted to evaluate the effect of independent variables on verbal fluency.
Results The study included 67.6% of female and 32.4% of male patients. The average age of the patients was 43.9±35.54 years and the average duration of the disease was 13.83±5.62 years. The results showed that some clinical characteristics including fatigue, disease type, first symptom, and sleep status have a significant relationship with the verbal fluency score of patients with MS (P<0.05). No significant relationship was observed between expanded disability status score, depression, and duration of disease with verbal fluency in patients with MS.
Conclusion The results showed that patients with the progressive type of the disease and patients whose onset of the disease was reported with visual symptoms had a weaker performance in verbal fluency than other participants. This issue can be considered in the early stages of disease diagnosis.