Society Logo
ME/CFS Australia Ltd
Please click here to donate ME/CFS South Australia Inc
 
 
Facebook
 
ME/CFS SOUTH AUSTRALIA INC

Registered Charity 3104

Email:
sacfs@sacfs.asn.au

Mailing address:

PO Box 322,
Modbury North,
South Australia 5092

Phone:
1300 128 339

Office Hours:
Monday - Friday,
10am - 4pm
(phone)

ME/CFS South Australia Inc supports the needs of sufferers of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and related illnesses. We do this by providing services and information to members.

Disclaimer

ME/CFS South Australia Inc aims to keep members informed of various research projects, diets, medications, therapies, news items, etc. All communication, both verbal and written, is merely to disseminate information and not to make recommendations or directives.

Unless otherwise stated, the views expressed on this Web site are not necessarily the official views of the Society or its Committee and are not simply an endorsement of products or services.

Become a Member
DOCX Application Form (Word, 198 KB)
Why become a member?

Does personality relate to Fibromyalgia?

Thursday 12 January 2012

 

From dailyRx:

 

dailyRxDoes Personality Relate to Fibromyalgia

By: Lindsay Patterson
Reviewed By: Joseph V. Madia, MD
Published: Jan 5, 2012 02:52 pm

(dailyRx) Can your personality affect the likelihood that you'll develop a health condition? Some scientists believe that may be the case with fibromyalgia.

There is no known cause for fibromyalgia, a condition that is characterized by chronic widespread pain for unknown reasons. A new study investigated the behavioral and psychological factors of the disorder.

The researchers discovered common ground in the personalities and behaviors of patients who suffer from the condition.

They found that fibromyalgia patients were more likely to avoid things or experiences that scared them, have low self-esteem or ability to set long-term goals, but easily lose themselves in their work or doing things for others.

The study was conducted by researchers in Turkey, led by Asli Gencay-Can at Yenisehir State Hospital in Bursa, Turkey. They write that their study could help identify patients who would benefit from psychotherapy and certain drugs.

Their research has its base in previous studies that observed similarities between fibromyalgia patients. These similarities are mostly negative: Dependence, passivity, victimization, irritability, avoidance, and maladaptive response to loss. One study found that fibromyalgia patients have a harder time recovering from stressful events.

The Turkish researchers used the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) to assess the personalities of 42 female patients with fibromyalgia. They used only females because the disorder is much more common in women than men.

TCI was developed by a doctor named Robert Cloninger to measure personality, and has been used to understand the biological basis of personality.

The TCI model splits personality into temperament and character. A person is born with a temperament, but character changes, influenced by where you are and your experiences.

The TCI is essentially a questionnaire to determine where you score on different temperament and character traits. The researchers compared the scores of those with fibromyalgia to healthy controls.

They found that fibromyalgia patients had significantly higher harm avoidance (HA) and self-transcendence (ST) scores, and lower self-directedness (SD) scores than the healthy controls.

They wrote, “Individuals with high HA scores tend to be cautious, careful, fearful, tense, nervous, doubtful, passive, negativistic, insecure, or pessimistic, even in situations that do not worry other people. They also feel very tired because of their low energy level.”

“Individuals with low SD scores correlated with low self-esteem, lack of long-term goals, and difficulties in accepting responsibility,” they continued. “Higher ST scores have also been found to be related with a higher level of posttraumatic stress.”

These traits may be related to the common experience of a disorder that causes pain and fatigue, and the paper does not suggest that the traits are correlated to the patient's personality before the development of her disease.

The study was limited by its small size, and it's not possible to generalize the results across all fibromyalgia patients.

The study was published in the December 2011 issue of Rheumatology International.

 

The above originally appeared here.

And the paper referred to in the article can be found here:

www

Rheumatology International: "Temperament and character profile of patients with fibromyalgia"

 


Arrow right

More Fibromyalgia News

 


 

blog comments powered by Disqus

Previous Previous Page