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Association of different levels of depressive symptoms with symptomatology, overall disease severity, and quality of life in women with fibromyalgia

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Abstract

Purpose

This study examined the associations of different levels of depression with pain, sleep quality, fatigue, functional exercise capacity, overall fibromyalgia (FM) severity, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in women with FM.

Methods

A total of 451 women with FM participated in this cross-sectional study. Depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory; BDI-II), pain intensity (numerical rating scale; NRS), pain sensitivity (algometry), sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), fatigue (Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory), functional exercise capacity (6-min walk test), FM severity (revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire), and HRQoL (SF-36) were assessed.

Results

Participants with severe depressive symptoms had significantly higher pain intensity (NRS = 1.1; 95 % CI 0.3–1.8), fatigue (12.6-units; 95 % CI 8.2–17.1) and overall FM severity (12.6-units; 95 % CI 11.4–23.7), as well as poorer sleep quality (3.2-units; 95 % CI 1.7–4.7) and mental component of HRQoL (−17.0-units; 95 % CI −21.0 to −12.9) than participants with minimal signs of depression. There was no association of signs of depression with pain sensitivity, exercise capacity, or the physical component of HRQoL (P > 0.05).

Conclusions

These results extend current knowledge on the association of signs of depression with FM severity and quality of life in women with FM, and suggest that severity of depressive symptoms could potentially be a prognostic factor to be considered in future prospective intervention studies.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all the members from the CTS-545 Research Group involved in the field work. All participants involved in the study are also gratefully acknowledged. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [I + D + I DEP2010-15639], and Consejería de Turismo, Comercio y Deporte (CTCD-201000019242-TRA). AS-M (grant number: FPU12/00963) and VS-J (grant number: AP2010-0963) were supported by Grants from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. ICA-G [grant number: BES-2011-047133], FE-L [grant number: BES-2014-067612], JRR (grant number: RYC-2010-05957) and FBO (grant number: RYC-2011-09011) were supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. VAA was supported by the Andalucia Talent Hub Fellowship, funded by the Andalusian Ministry of Economy, Innovation, Science and Employment and the EU 7th Framework Program via the Marie Curie Action, “Co-funding of Regional, National and International Programs”. M.H and K.A were supported by the OAK Foundation. The founding sources had no role in any stage of the study. The results of this article are likely to be included in the Doctoral Thesis from AS-M in the context of the Biomedicine Doctoral Program at the University of Granada.

Conflict of interest

None.

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Author notes

    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Physical Education and Sport, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Granada, Avda. de Alfacar s/n. 18011, Granada, Spain

      Alberto Soriano-Maldonado, Francisco B. Ortega, Víctor Segura-Jiménez, Fernando Estévez-López, Inmaculada C. Álvarez-Gallardo, Virginia A. Aparicio, Manuel Delgado-Fernández & Jonatan R. Ruiz

    2. Department of Rheumatology, The Parker Institute, Copenhagen University Hospital Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, Frederiksberg, Denmark

      Kirstine Amris & Marius Henriksen

    3. Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

      Fernando Estévez-López

    4. Department of Physiology, Faculty of Pharmacy, and Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

      Virginia A. Aparicio

    5. Department of Public and Occupational Health, EMGO+ Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

      Virginia A. Aparicio

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    1. Alberto Soriano-Maldonado
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    Correspondence to Alberto Soriano-Maldonado.

    Additional information

    On behalf of the al-Ándalus project.

    Marius Henriksen and Jonatan R. Ruiz have contributed equally to this work.

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    Soriano-Maldonado, A., Amris, K., Ortega, F.B. et al. Association of different levels of depressive symptoms with symptomatology, overall disease severity, and quality of life in women with fibromyalgia. Qual Life Res 24, 2951–2957 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-015-1045-0

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