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

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a pathological condition characterized by widespread and chronic musculoskeletal pain associated with other psychopathological manifestations which have a negative impact on patients' quality of life. FM is frequently associated with alexithymia, a multidimensional construct constituted by a lack of emotional awareness, an externally oriented cognitive thinking style, difficulty in identifying feelings and verbally communicate them. 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 with other rheumatic diseases (RD) and a healthy control group (HC).The sample consisted of 127 subjects (M= 25, F=102; mean age: 51.97; SD: 11.14), of which 48 with FM, 41 with RD and 38 HC. FM and RD groups were recruited at the rheumatology department of S. Chiara Hospital in Pisa. All groups underwent to a test battery investigating: anxiety and depressive symptoms (HADS), pain (VAS; QUID-S /-A) and alexithymia (TAS-20). Data analysis has been performed using SPSS and nonparametric group comparisons (Kruskal-Wallis) and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient were computed. Subjects with FM reported significant 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 FM showed higher scores than RD subjects on QUID-A (p <.01) and VAS (p <.05). The correlations between the examined variables were stronger within the HC and RD groups when compared to FM. In conclusion, while in the FM group the examined scores were higher than the RD and HC group, the correlations between the dimensions themselves were weaker compared to the other groups, suggesting that alexithymia doesn’t play a primary role in the symptom manifestation of the FM patients.