Stress and progression in multiple sclerosis

The hypothesis that stress might be connected to causation or exacerbation of multiple sclerosis has been under discussion for a long time. The current studies indicate that there is a coincidence between stress and disease progression. Besides the state of art in research different stress models will be introduced in the paper and the relations between disease, resources and coping will be discussed. Besides the influence of distressing life events on disease, the effect of illness-related characteristics on the coping behaviour will be considered in this regard. From the results of the presented studies and the described stress models it was concluded that the possibilities of stress avoiding intervention programs should be taken into account more strongly in the future.