REIS, Maria de Jesus Dutra dos    RABELO, Laura Zamot. Fibromyalgia and stress: exploring relations. Temas psicol. []. 2010, 18, 2, pp.399-414. ISSN 1413-389X.

The present study aimed to investigate possible correlations between stress, mental and physical disorders, and different forms of victimization in fibromyalgia patients (FM). The medical records of 16 patients who received treatment from both a physiotherapist and a psychologist were examined. The medical records included the results from psychological and physiotherapeutic assessments, general health information, economic indicators, as well as both transcripts and copies of videotaped and audiotaped therapy sessions. Additionally, the patients' records included stress, anxiety and depression's scores obtained at the beginning of treatment that were taken into consideration. The therapy sessions were analyzed and lifelong victimization events were classified in the following five categories: emotional neglect and abuse, physical abuse, sexual harassment and abuse. The patients were women between 22 and 73 years of age. All of them presented stress indicators. The analysis revealed significant correlations between tender points, stress, and anxiety. Emotional neglect and abuse during childhood and adulthood were the predominant categories in patients reports. Victimization categories in childhood were positively related to anxiety, depression and tender points. Early victimization and child labor were correlated with different medical conditions in adult life, while physical abuse was associated with pathologies of the muscular-skeletal system. A tentative proposal to integrate the observed correlations from the perspective of Behavior Analysis is presented.

: Fibromyalgia; Stress; Anxiety; Depression; Victimization.

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