BACKGROUND

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak raised many concerns along with physical and mental health complications, including adjustment disorder (AD). Given the utmost importance of this issue for vulnerable groups, the present study was to investigate COVID-19-induced AD among Iranian patients living with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2020.

METHODS

Adopting a cross-sectional research design, this study was performed on a statistical population of MS patients. Sampling was further done online via Porsline, as a survey tool, in Iran. In total, 247 patients were examined for the period of 2 months, recruiting a sociodemographic-medical information form and the Adjustment Disorder New Module (ADNM). As a final point, the data were analyzed using the SPSS Statistics software (ver. 26).

RESULTS

The MS patients' mean age was 36.10 ± 8.07 years. 82.6% of the participants were female. The AD mean score was also 44.09 ± 13.89, at the moderate level. In this line, a significant relationship was observed between AD among patients with MS and gender (p = 0.001), occupation (p = 0.009), a history of psychiatric disorders (p = 0.001), a history of taking psychiatric medications (p = 0.001), medical appointments canceled due to COVID-19 (p = 0.001), medication shortages amid COVID-19 (p = 0.018), a history of COVID-19 infection (p = 0.018), a history of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for COVID-19 (p = 0.042), worry about COVID-19 infection (p = 0.001), fear of familial COVID-19 infection (p = 0.001), and death of friends or relatives caused by COVID-19 (p = 0.025).

CONCLUSION

The present study established that AD in the MS patients was at the moderate level, and it was even associated with some distinctive variables. So, data from multicenter studies are needed to achieve better recommendations regarding screening psychiatric disorders and supportive strategies in clinical practice.