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BACKGROUND While comorbidities increase with age, duration of multiple sclerosis (MS) leads to disability accumulation in persons with MS. The influence of ageing vis-a-vis MS duration remains largely unexplored. We studied the independent associations of ageing and MS duration with disability and comorbidities in the Swiss MS Registry participants. METHODS Self-reported data was cross-sectionally analyzed using confounder-adjusted logistic regression models for 6 outcomes: cancer, type 2 diabetes (T2D), hypertension, cardiac diseases, depression, and having at least moderate or severe gait disability. Using cubic splines, we explored non-linear changes in risk shapes. RESULTS Among 1615 participants age was associated with cardiac diseases (OR 1.05, 95% CI [1.02, 2.08]), hypertension (OR 1.08, 95% CI [1.06, 2.10]), T2D (OR 1.10, 95%CI [1.05, 1.16]) and cancer (OR 1.04, 95% CI [1.01, 1.07]). MS duration was not associated with comorbidities, except for cardiac diseases (OR 1.03, 95% CI [1.00, 1.06]). MS duration and age were independently associated with having at least moderate gait disability (OR 1.06, 95% CI [1.04, 1.07]; OR 1.04, 95% CI [1.02, 1.05], respectively), and MS duration was associated with severe gait disability (OR 1.05, 95% CI [1.03, 1.08]). The spline analysis suggested a non-linear increase of having at least moderate gait disability with age. CONCLUSIONS Presence of comorbidities was largely associated with age only. Having at least moderate gait disability was associated with both age and MS duration, while having severe gait disabity was associated with MS duration only.

BACKGROUND: Clinician-assessed Expanded Disease Status Scale (EDSS) is gold standard in clinical investigations but normally unavailable in population-based, patient-centred MS-studies. Our objective was to develop a self-reported gait measure reflecting EDSS-categories. METHODS: We developed the self-reported disability status scale (SRDSS) with three categories (≤3.5, 4-6.5, ≥7) based on three mobility-related questions. The SRDSS was determined for 173 persons with MS and validated against clinical EDSS to calculate sensitivity and specificity. RESULTS: Accuracy was 88.4% (153 correctly classified) and weighted kappa 0.73 (0.62-0.84). Sensitivity/specificity-pairs were 94.5%/77.8%, 69.0%/94.7% and 100%/98.2% for SRDSS ≤3.5, 4-6.5 and ≥7, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Self-reported SRDSS approximates EDSS-categories well and fosters comparability between clinical and population-based studies.