• Ragini Alok, Siddharth Kumar Das, Girdhar Gopal Agarwal, Sarvada Chand Tiwari, Latika Salwahan, and Ragini Srivastava.
• From the *ICMR Project, †Department of Rheumatology, King George Medical University Lucknow; ‡Department of Statistics, Lucknow University; and §Department of Geriatric Mental Health, King George Medical University Lucknow, Lucknow, India.
• J Clin Rheumatol. 2014 Sep 1; 20 (6): 314-6.

ObjectivesPatients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) often experience problems such as poor quality of life (QoL), loss of self-efficacy (SE), inappropriate coping behavior, and chronic widespread pain along with other symptoms. Recent studies have indicated that sense of SE and effective coping strategies (CSs) are the crux on which the management of chronic pain and enrichment of QoL of FMS patients depend. Realizing the importance of this subject for the rehabilitation of the people with FMS, this study aimed at analyzing the correlation between severity of FMS, and QoL, SE, and CSs among the patients of FMS.MethodsOne hundred patients with fibromyalgia (FM) and 100 control subjects were studied. Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire-Revised, Quality of Life Scale, Arthritis Self-efficacy Scale, and COPE Scales for CSs were administered to both the groups.ResultsSignificantly lower SE, poor QoL, and less use of CSs were reported by FM patients (P < 0.01) vis-à-vis healthy people. Problem-focused coping (r = 0.27, P < 0.01) and SE (r = 0.20, P < 0.05) were found to be significantly and positively associated with QoL. Components of Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire-Revised, namely, pain, function, and symptoms, were found to be significantly and negatively associated with problem-focused coping (P < 0.05), SE (P < 0.01), and QoL (P < 0.01).ConclusionsThis study confirms that problem-focused CSs and SE are important correlates of QoL and severity of FM in Indian as well as other populations.

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