Relationship between the body image and level of pain, functional status, severity of depression, and quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome

Abstract

The aims were to investigate how the body image is affected in fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) in comparison to healthy people, as well as to explore the relationship of the body image with the level of pain, functional status, severity of depression, and quality of life (QoL). Demographic variables, symptoms of fibromyalgia, and number of fibromyalgia tender points for 51 patients with FMS and 41 control subjects were recorded. All patients were asked to mark the level of pain on visual analogue scale (VAS). Six-minute walking test was recorded for functional assessment. The impact of the disease was evaluated by fibromyalgia impact questionnaire (FIQ). All patients were asked to complete body image scale (BIS), Beck depression inventory (BDI), and short form-36 (SF-36). There were no differences between groups with regard to demographic variables (p>0.05). Mean VAS was 7.5±1.4 for the patients with FMS and 0.3±0.4 for control subjects (p<0.05). Mean FIQ was 70.8±13.2 and 8.2±9.6 for the FMS and control groups, respectively (p<0.05). Mean BIS and BDI were 106.5±24.0 and 20.2±11.2 for FMS group and 66.3±23.4 and 3.4±4.0 for control group, respectively (p<0.05). SF-36 subscores were found to be significantly lower in patients with FMS than control subjects (p<0.05), except for the social function subscore. BIS score had significant relationships both with VAS (r=0.843) and FIQ (r=0.290) in patients with FMS (p<0.05). There were significant relationships between BIS scores and SF-36 pain (r= -0.288), energy/vitality (r= -0.519), mental health (r= -0.442), and general health (r= -0,492) subscores (p<0.05). Body image was associated with VAS in the multivariate linear regression analysis. The results of the present study indicate that body image is disturbed in patients with FMS compared to control subjects. For the evaluation of the level of pain, impact of the disease, and QoL in patients with FMS, it would be useful to consider the relationship of the body image disturbance with these parameters.

Exteroceptive and Interoceptive Body-Self Awareness in Fibromyalgia Patients

“…They described changes in the perception of their body size and its relationship with space: they felt their body becoming larger and as though space was shrinking. These results are in line with those of Akkaya et al (2012) who report that body image is disrupted in fibromyalgia. Moreover, patients with fibromyalgia exhibit a higher frequency of falls and loss of balance despite an absence of inflammatory joint damage (Jones et al, 2009; Meireles et al, 2014), suggesting that a sensorimotor aspect of body awareness is also affected.…”

The implications of body-image dissatisfaction among kidney-transplant recipients

“…In both studies, the associations between body-image dissatisfaction and QOL were not universal, and varied across different measures and subscales. These results differ from the findings of most previously conducted studies, in which full and consistent associations between these two variables were reported (Akkaya et al, 2012;Jelovsek & Barber, 2006;Steinmann et al, 2011). This difference could be explained by methodological factors, such as the small sample size or the selection of a less-sensitive QOL measure (SF-12 vs. SF-36).…”

“…Among women with pelvic organ prolapse, worsening body image correlated with lower QOL, both physical and mental (Jelovsek & Barber, 2006). The same results were found among fibromyalgia patients (Akkaya, Akkaya, Atalay, Balci, & Sahin, 2012). Severity of body-image disturbance was also found to be associated with increased psychological distress among breast cancer survivors (Cohen, Mabjish, & Zidan, 2011;Przezdziecki et al, 2013), patients with pemphigus vulgaris (Mazzotti et al, 2011), and adult dialysis patients (Partridge & Robertson, 2011).…”

The Prevalence of Fibromyalgia in Patients with Restless Legs Syndrome

“…In a previously conducted study, worsening was shown in general body perception in patients with FM compared with patients without FM (47). In our study, the presence of FM in patients with FM also had a negative impact, especially on the personal evaluation of their own health.…”