2012 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 25-30
Patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) have not only pain but also various somatic and psychiatric symptoms. Reports of patients with FMS having been analyzed by psychological scales were few in Japan. The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychological aspects of patients with FMS. We used the general health questionnaire (GHQ) and Hamilton's rating scale for depression (HRSD) to investigated mental health degrees in patients with FMS (n=20) , and the results were compared with those of chronic pain patients without FMS (non-FMS, n=20). The durations of illness were 24.1 months and 54.1 months for patients with FMS and non-FMS, respectively. The GHQ total scores and all subordinate scale scores of FMS patients were significantly higher than those of non-FMS patients, suggesting that the mental health degree of patients with FMS was lower than that of non-FMS patients. Moreover the patients with FMS had moderate degrees of depression. These results indicated that patients with FMS were exhausted physically and mentally. Evaluating the mental and psychosocial aspects of patients with FMS is equally essential to treatment for pain.
