The frequency of smoking in fibromyalgia patients and its association with symptoms

Abstract

The objective of the study was to determine the frequency of smoking in fibromyalgia (FM) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and investigate its association with the symptoms of FM. We included age-matched 302 FM (289 F, 13 M), and 115 (105 F, 10 M) RA patients. All patients were questioned about smoking and the severity of their chronic widespread pain (CWP) and symptoms of FM by using a visual analog scale (VAS, 0-10) and FM impact questionnaire. In addition, patients were asked questions about depression and anxiety. The frequency of smoking in FM patients (77 subjects, 25.5%) tended to be higher than in RA patients (19 subjects, 16.5%) (P = 0.05). When the features of smoker FM patients were compared to others, it was observed that the frequencies of subjects with an education duration >9 years (P < 0.001) and subjects with an history of psychiatric therapy (P = 0.01) and alcohol consumption (P = 0.013) were higher. The mean age of FM patients with smoking (P = 0.002) was lower; the duration of FM (P = 0.024) was shorter; and the scores of CWP severity (P = 0.05), unrestorative sleepiness (P = 0.017), paresthesia (P = 0.038) and anxiety-depression (P = 0.007) were higher. An important proportion of FM patients, nearly one-fourth, were re-smokers. Smoker FM patients had higher education level, and the severity of their FM-related symptoms like CWP and their anxiety-depression scores were higher.

Smoking habits influence pain and functional and psychiatric features in fibromyalgia

“…In addition, the Brazilian study also did not show significant differences in fatigue, depression, and anxiety (components of FIQ) between FMS smokers and FMS non-smokers [18]. However, increased scores for depression and/or anxiety in smoking FMS patients as compared to those of non-smoking patients were identified [16,17]. In the present study, functional assessments for fatigue, depression, and anxiety were also performed.…”

“…A majority of the research has suggested that smoking could influence clinical features and functional impairment in FMS patients [15][16][17]. However, no association between smoking and FMS features was proposed in a clinical study of the Brazilian FMS population [18].…”

“…Furthermore, the researchers revealed that these parameters were closely related to the level of smoking (packs of cigarettes per day). Recently, two additional studies also demonstrated that smoking could be a triggering environmental factor that leads to aggravation of clinical features in FMS [16,17]. However, Costallat et al reported no impact of smoking on the health status of Brazilian FMS patients, showing no difference in the mean FIQ scores between smoking FMS and nonsmoking FMS patients [18].…”

“…First, the number of non-smokers was relatively small. The smoking rate in previous studies ranged from 14 to 22% [15,17]. According to the In-depth Analyses of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2006, the mean smoking rate in Korean adults was 22.9% [36].…”

“…Among negative factors related to modulating disease progression or clinical features of FMS, environmental triggers such as trauma, emotional stress, infection or vaccination, and diverse autoimmune diseases have been reported by several clinical investigations [12][13][14]. Recently, some studies have suggested that smoking could influence pain severity or functional features in FMS [15][16][17]. In contrast, a recent study from a Brazilian group showed no impact of smoking on the health status of FMS patients [18].…”