To analyze the prevalence of social anxiety and other psychiatric comorbidities in MS patients compared to matched controls.

Several studies have found that people with MS experience relatively high rates of anxiety and depression; however, there are few reports about social anxiety in people with MS.

We included 50 patients with MS that were seen in a large safety net hospital in Ecuador during regularly scheduled visits, and 50 sex- and age-matched participants from the general population (GP) within a six-month interval. All included participants completed the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale with 21 items (DASS 21, Depression > 13, Anxiety > 9, Stress > 19). We evaluated neurological disability in MS by neurologist ratings on the Expanded Disability Status Scale. We defined clinically significant social anxiety symptoms as SPIN scores of 19.

The MS patients’ mean age was 41.9 years and 54% were female. The self-reported psychosocial assessments showed that MS participants were more likely to present positive social anxiety symptoms (OR 7.37; 95% CI 1.99–27.3; p-value < 0.001), depression (OR 3.76; 95% CI 1.41–10.1; p-value = 0.006), stress (OR 2.67; 95% CI 1.09–6.52; p-value = 0.029), and general anxiety (OR 4.70; 95% CI 1.93–11.4) than the GP. There were strong correlations between social anxiety and depression, general anxiety, and stress (p-value=0.006, 0.001, and <0.001, respectively) in MS patients.

This is the first study to prospectively compare the prevalence of social anxiety between MS patients and the general population. Patients with MS had a higher risk of presenting social anxiety symptoms than a matched control group in a Hispanic population. This condition is unrelated to neurological disability and subtype of MS, but is associated with coexisting psychiatric comorbidities. These factors should be considered simultaneously when evaluating the effects of treatments in this population.