Comorbidity of fibromyalgia and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in a community sample of women.
OBJECTIVE: To test alternative explanations for the comorbidity between fibromyalgia (FM), a medically unexplained syndrome involving widespread pain, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In contrast to a default "risk factor" hypothesis, tested hypotheses were that: A) The association is due to a sampling bias introduced by the study of care-seeking individuals; B) FM is an additive burden that strains coping resources when confronting life stress; and C) Arousal symptoms of PTSD and FM are confounded. DESIGN: Community-dwelling women in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area (N=1,312) completed a telephone survey regarding FM-like symptoms prior to September 11, 2001. Approximately 6 months after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, they again completed the survey, to which questions regarding PTSD symptoms were added. RESULTS: The odds of probable PTSD were more than three times greater in women with FM-like symptoms, both assessed after 9/11. The odds ratio was not reduced by controlling for FM-like symptoms before 9/11 or for the potentially confounded symptoms of PTSD specifically related to arousal. CONCLUSIONS: These findings lead us to reject alternate explanations for the comorbidity between FM and PTSD. Speculations that FM and PTSD share psychobiological risk factors remain plausible.[1]References
- Comorbidity of fibromyalgia and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in a community sample of women. Raphael, K.G., Janal, M.N., Nayak, S. Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) (2004) [Pubmed]
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