Fig 1.
Method to estimate lifetime psychological stress.
Lifetime stressors can arise from potentially-stressful significant life events, identified either from a pre-determined list or by those described by respondents, and self-reported occupational stress. A high level of resilience would tend to reduce the amount of psychological stress induced by these stressors, whereas high levels of anxiety would tend to increase psychological stress. CDRS: Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, mGAI: modified Geriatric Anxiety Inventory, mSRRS: modified Social Readjustment Rating Scale.
Fig 2.
Selection of individuals for analysis.
The final dataset of 850 respondents was obtained after exclusion criteria were applied for younger age and not completing at least one of the stress-related items.
Table 1.
Demographic characteristics of respondents.
Fig 3.
Disability and disease duration in ALS respondents.
(A) Most ALS respondents had mild or moderate disability (with lower ALSFRS-R inverted scores, on the left), while fewer had severe disability (higher ALSFRS-R inverted scores, on the right). (B) Most ALS respondents completed the questionnaire within four years of being diagnosed. A small number of long-term ALS survivors (on the right) also completed the questionnaire.
Table 2.
Male-female comparisons in scores for the life events inventory, occupational stress, resilience and anxiety.
Fig 4.
Distributions and median values of scores for the Life Events Inventory (all ages), resilience and anxiety.
(A) The distribution and median values of Life Events Inventory scores are similar between male and female ALS and control respondents. (B) Both male and female ALS and control respondents have higher median values for resilience (CDRS scores) than their gender controls. (C) Male ALS and control respondents have similar distributions and median values for anxiety (mGAI scores), while female ALS respondents have lower anxiety levels than female controls. CDRS: Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, mGAI: modified Geriatric Anxiety Inventory.
Fig 5.
Frequency distributions of scores for the Life Events Inventory (all ages), resilience, and anxiety.
The frequency distributions of Life Event Inventory scores are similar between ALS and control males (A), as well as between ALS and control females (B). Resilience scores (CDRS) are shifted to the right (ie, greater resilience) in both male (C) and female (D) ALS respondents. The frequency distribution of anxiety scores (mGAI) are similar in both male (E) and female (F) ALS and control respondents. CDRS: Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, mGAI: modified Geriatric Anxiety Inventory.
Table 3.
ALS-control comparisons in scores for the life events inventory, occupational stress, resilience and anxiety.