Pain acceptance in patients with endometriosis and fibromyalgia

Objective: Pain acceptance has become an important process in understanding adjustment to chronic pain. This study aimed to examine the relationship among acceptance of pain and Psychological Distress (PD), Psychological Well-Being (PWB), and catastrophism (CT) in patients with fibromyalgia (FM) and in patients with endometriosis (EN). Methods: A total of 50 patients with EN were compared to 48 patients with FM. Measures of PWB, PD and CT were obtained from standardized, self-administered rating scales. Patients were split off on two groups according to acceptance scores measured by the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (CPAQ; high and low CPAQ). Between-groups differences on outcome measures were explored by means of ANCOVA. Results: Subjects with FM showed higher Depression, Positive Relationships, Self-acceptance, Environmental Mastery and PWB total score than subjects with EN. Moreover, the results revealed that subjects with low acceptance yield higher PD, lower PWB, and higher CT than subjects with high acceptance. No interaction effect between clinical group and acceptance was found. Conclusions: The results suggest that low levels of acceptance make the person more vulnerable to the development of psychological distress in both populations. Furthermore, findings highlight that having low anxiety and/or depression symptoms does not correspond to having high PWB.