Gratitude as a Moderator Between Employment Status and Sense of Accomplishment in People with Multiple Sclerosis

Research Objectives: The study aims to investigate whether gratitude moderates the relationship between employment status and sense of accomplishment among people living with MS.

Design: This study was cross-sectional.

Setting: Participants were recruited from the National MS Society.

Participants: A total of 291participants who reported to be employed or unemployed were included in this study.

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: Gratitude was assessed with the Gratitude Questionnaire-6 (GQ-6) (McCullough et al., 2002).Sense of accomplishment was assessed with the Accomplishment subscale of the PERMA-Profiler (Butler & Kern, 2016). Sociodemographic variables (e.g., employment) were assessed.

Results: The main effects for employment status (B = .95; p < .001) and gratitude (B = .58; p < .001) on sense of accomplishment were significant. These main effect results suggested that being employed was associated with higher levels of sense of accomplishment and higher levels of gratitude were associated with increased level of sense of accomplishment. The interaction term of employment status and gratitude was significant (B = .34; p < .05), indicating that the effect of employment status on sense of accomplishment was moderated by gratitude.

Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated the role of gratitude in moderating the relationship between employment and sense of accomplishment. Findings of our study provided some preliminary evidence that practitioners can integrate gratitude-enhancing interventions in promoting a sense of accomplishment when experiencing positive life outcomes such as employment.

Author(s) Disclosures: No conflict of interest.