Fibromyalgia and psychiatric comorbidity: their effect on the quality of life patients

Abstract

Sumary. Patients with fibromyalgia (FM) often have associated mental disorders. As well as being very prevalent, the two conditions also have sociodemographic and clinical similarities. If both of these clinical conditions lead independently to a limitation of the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of the patients, it may be thought that their conjunction could have a greater adverse effect on this parameter. Equally, it could be assumed that the factors that worsen the HRQL of patients with FM or with mental illness could have a more serious effect on the HRQL of those in whom the two clinical conditions coexist. Although this conclusion seems evident, as far as we know there have been no studies to assess how much or in what way psychiatric comorbidity affects the HRQL of patients with FM, or any studies to analyze the particular factors that may affect their HRQL. This study approaches the importance of psychiatric comorbidity in patients with fibromyalgia and analyzes the combined effect that these two conditions have on the overall HRQL of these patients.