Group/Researcher: Dr M. Rose, Kings College London

Value of Grant: £43,555

This one year project is exploring the quality of life of people with muscle disease and how psychosocial factors can impact upon it. This will help to devise strategies that might help people with muscle disease improve their quality of life even if the muscle disease itself cannot be treated.

We know that muscle disease reduces quality of life (QoL) but the degree to which it does so is not related to the severity of the muscle disease alone. This is because psychosocial factors such as the subject’s illness perceptions, mood and degree of optimism also influence QoL, as does their ability to cope with adversity.

The importance of these psychosocial factors has been demonstrated for other diseases but not for muscle disease. In this research proposal we will ask several UK muscle clinics to send a postal questionnaire booklet to their patients. This questionnaire will ask the patients information not only about the severity of their muscle disease, but also about their quality of life, mood, degree of optimism and coping skills. Statistical analysis of the responses will greatly improve our knowledge of the importance of psychosocial factors for the QoL of muscle disease patients.

It is hoped that this knowledge will allow us to devise psychosocial interventions that improve QoL even if we cannot treat the actual muscle disease.