Self-awareness in multiple sclerosis: Relationships with executive functions and affect.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Rehabilitation Medicine

Background:

• Self-awareness deficits are prevalent in persons with multiple sclerosis (pwMS).
• Two key aspects of self-awareness, intellectual and online, are crucial for daily functioning and clinical management.
• Understanding these deficits informs therapeutic strategies for pwMS.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate intellectual and online self-awareness in pwMS.
• To compare self-awareness levels between pwMS and healthy controls (HCs).
• To identify factors influencing self-awareness in pwMS for improved clinical care.

Main Methods:

• A study involving 95 pwMS and 65 HCs.
• Intellectual awareness assessed via discrepancies between self- and informant-reported functioning.
• Online awareness measured by self-assessment changes post-task performance.

Main Results:

• PwMS exhibited significantly poorer intellectual awareness in areas like money management, task performance, social interaction, and problem-solving compared to HCs.
• Intellectual awareness in pwMS was negatively associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms.
• No significant difference in online awareness was found between pwMS and HCs; both groups accurately assessed performance post-task.

Conclusions:

• Intellectual self-awareness is impaired in pwMS, while online self-awareness is preserved.
• Affective symptoms in pwMS can influence their perception of functional status.
• Incorporating functional tasks into assessment and treatment may enhance self-awareness and ability estimation in pwMS.