The relationship between the quality of the shared decision-making process and hope in patients with multiple sclerosis: an analytical cross-sectional study

Multiple sclerosis (MS) profoundly impacts patients’ psychological and social well-being. This study investigated the relationship between the quality of the shared decision-making (SDM) process and hope among patients with MS in northwest Iran. This analytical cross-sectional study selected 300 patients with MS covered by the Ardabil MS Association via simple random sampling.

Data were collected using a sociodemographic questionnaire, the AGA-25 scale, and Snyder’s Adult Hope Scale. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, analysis of variance, and a linear regression model in SPSS 26. In this analytical cross-sectional study of 300 patients with multiple sclerosis (mean age = 32.20 ± 10.20 years; 66.3% women), most participants had a relapsing–remitting disease course (76%) and a mean hope score of 38.97 ± 6.33 and a mean shared decision-making score of 63.99 ± 9.66.

The mean scores of hope and its subscales were significantly higher than the established criterion values (p