Elsevier

Pain Management Nursing

Volume 16, Issue 1, February 2015, Pages 60-68
Pain Management Nursing

Original Article
Self-Efficacy and Affect as Mediators Between Pain Dimensions and Emotional Symptoms and Functional Limitation in Women With Fibromyalgia

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmn.2014.04.005Get rights and content

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of self-efficacy and affect as mediators of the relationship between pain and several fibromyalgia (FM) symptoms (functional limitation, depression, and anxiety). We evaluated 144 women with FM for self-reported pain (numerical pain scale), pressure pain sensitivity (pressure pain thresholds), functional limitation (Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire), self-efficacy (Chronic Pain Self-Efficacy Scale), depression-anxiety (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), and positive-negative affect (Positive-Negative Affect Scale). Mediating analyses were conducted with ordinary least squares multiple regression analysis. The results demonstrated that self-reported pain and pressure pain sensitivity exhibited significant relationships with functional limitation, anxiety, depression, self-efficacy, and affect. Affect mediated the relationship between pressure pain sensitivity and anxiety, whereas self-efficacy was the mediating variable between self-reported pain and functional limitation and depression. Our results support a complex nature of pain in women presenting with FM, as cognitive and emotional variables have different mediator relationships between pain dimensions and functional and emotional outcomes in women with FM.

Section snippets

Fibromyalgia, Pain, Functional Limitation, Anxiety, and Depression

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a musculoskeletal chronic pain disorder of unknown pathophysiology that mainly affects women. It is characterized by widespread pain, sleep disturbances, fatigue, tenderness, cognitive difficulties, and other somatic complaints. Despite pain being the characteristic symptom in an FM diagnosis, its high rate of comorbidities has resulted in new diagnosis criteria by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR; Wolfe, Clauw, & Fitzcharles, 2010), which introduces the associated

Participants

The study included 144 women with FM with an average age of 50 years (SD = 11). Average reported illness duration (time since diagnosis) was 18 years (SD = 13). Of the women, 81% were married, 12.1% were single, 6% divorced, and the remaining 3% were widowed. Fifty-one percent had primary studies, 21% secondary education, 12% high school education, and the remaining 16% had no studies. Twenty-nine percent were working at the time of the study, 60% were not employed, and the remaining 11% were

Preliminary Analysis: Correlations Among Variables

As shown in Table 1, pressure pain sensitivity levels (PPT) showed negative correlations with anxiety and functional limitation. The NPS showed positive correlations with all the outcome variables (anxiety, depression, and functional limitation). In relation to the mediating factors (affect and self-efficacy), PPT levels exhibited a negative correlation with negative affect and a positive correlation with positive affect. Self-reported pain revealed negative correlations with self-efficacy

Discussion

The scores found for anxiety and depression, pain self-efficacy, and self-reported pain in our sample are similar to those found in other similar Spanish studies about FM (Martín-Aragón et al., 2001, Moioli and Merayo, 2005, Vallejo et al., 2012), although there was a greater variability in functional limitation and affect, thus, supporting the representativeness of the sample regarding symptomatology.

The results of our study show that self-reported pain and pressure pain sensitivity are valid

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    The authors have no competing interests to report.

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