ALEXITHYMIA, NEGATIVE AFFECTIVE STATES AND PAIN IN PATIENTS WITH FIBROMYALGIA: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a pathological condition characterized by widespread and chronicmusculoskeletal pain associated with other psychopathological manifestations which have anegative impact on patients' quality of life. FM is frequently associated with alexithymia, amultidimensional construct constituted by a lack of emotional awareness, an externallyoriented cognitive thinking style, difficulty in identifying feelings and verbally communicatethem. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between alexithymia,negative affective states and pain in a sample of subjects with FM compared to a group withother rheumatic diseases (RD) and a healthy control group (HC).The sample consisted of127 subjects (M= 25, F=102; mean age: 51.97; SD: 11.14), of which 48 with FM, 41 with RDand 38 HC. FM and RD groups were recruited at the rheumatology department of S. Chiara MJCP|7, 2, Suppl. 201994Hospital in Pisa. All groups underwent to a test battery investigating: anxiety and depressivesymptoms (HADS), pain (VAS; QUID-S /-A) and alexithymia (TAS-20). Data analysis hasbeen performed using SPSS and nonparametric group comparisons (Kruskal-Wallis) andSpearman’s rank correlation coefficient were computed. Subjects with FM reportedsignificant higher scores than HC on anxiety (p <.001), depression (p <.001), TAS (p <.01),QUID-S (p <.001), QUID-A (p <.001) and VAS (p <.001). Furthermore, subjects with FMshowed higher scores than RD subjects on QUID-A (p <.01) and VAS (p <.05). Thecorrelations between the examined variables were stronger within the HC and RD groupswhen compared to FM. In conclusion, while in the FM group the examined scores werehigher than the RD and HC group, the correlations between the dimensions themselves wereweaker compared to the other groups, suggesting that alexithymia doesn’t play a primary rolein the symptom manifestation of the FM patients.