Somatic symptom disorder leads to worse fibromyalgia symptoms

A higher symptom burden in people with fibromyalgia is experienced by those with somatic symptom disorder, says research in Psychosomatics.

Somatic symptom disorder is when someone has a persistent and distressing psychological reaction to somatic symptoms. We know that preoccupation with physical symptoms is associated with poor long-term outcomes in people who have pain disorders. So somatic symptom disorder could be used to identify and help chronic pain patients with particular needs.

A research group split 140 people with fibromyalgia into groups depending on if they had somatic symptom disorder (49 people did). Those who had somatic symptom disorder were found to have higher anxiety sensitivity, health anxiety and reactivity to pain. And they had lower non-reactivity to inner experiences.

The findings could not be explained by a higher level of fibromyalgia core symptoms, the authors explain, concluding that “somatic symptom disorder appears to be associated with a higher symptom burden in fibromyalgia.”

Click here to read the original research. 

For more news about fibromyalgia click here.

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