Clinical value of the Japanese version of patient‐reported multiple sclerosis neuropsychological screening questionnaire
Background
Neuropsychological abnormalities are common in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS); however, unlike motor and sensory deficits, their measurement in a clinical setting can be difficult.
Methods
We evaluated 80 patients with MS using the newly created Japanese version of a patient‐report form of the Multiple Sclerosis Neuropsychological Questionnaire (MSNQ) and compared the results with those of processing speed tests (PST), namely, CogEval, and health‐related quality of life (QOL). QOL was evaluated using the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form‐36 Health Survey (SF‐36).
Results
The partial correlation coefficient, after excluding the effect of disease duration, showed that the total MSNQ score was significantly correlated with PST (r = −0.2798, P = .0125), mental component summary (MCS) (r = −0.2913, P = .0092), and social role component summary (RCS) (r = −0.2591, P = .0211) in SF‐36. Multiple linear regression analyses showed that physical component summary was significantly associated with age (P = .0158), EDSS (P = .0005), and CogEval raw score (P = .0029), whereas MCS was significantly associated with MSNQ (P = .0007). When patients with MS were divided into two groups using a median total MSNQ score threshold of 17, those with high MSNQ scores showed significantly higher EDSS scores (P = .0101), lower PST scores (P = .0426), and lower MCS scores in SF‐36 (P = .0083).
Conclusion
The Japanese version of the patient‐reported MSNQ can be useful in identifying patients with decreased mental QOL, which might be more difficult than to capture physical QOL.
