• W Michael Hooten, Cynthia O Townsend, and Paul A Decker.
• Department of Anesthesiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, USA. hooten.william@mayo.edu
• Pain Med. 2007 Nov 1;8(8):624-32.

ObjectiveThis study was conducted to test the hypothesis that gender differences in physical and emotional functioning are present among patients with fibromyalgia undergoing multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation.DesignRetrospective case-matched series. Setting. Multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation center at a tertiary referral medical center.PatientsThirty-three consecutive men with fibromyalgia admitted from January 2002 through June 2005 were matched to 33 women with fibromyalgia for age, treatment dates, and program completion status. Interventions. A 3-week outpatient multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation program based on a cognitive-behavioral model that incorporates analgesic medication withdrawal.Outcome MeasuresMultidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI), Short Form-36 Health Status Questionnaire (SF-36), Coping Strategies Questionnaire-Catastrophizing subscale (CSQ-C), and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale (CES-D) were administered before and after treatment. The numbers of patients using opioids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and benzodiazepines before and after treatment were compared.ResultsPretreatment MPI and SF-36 scores revealed men had lower health perception (P = 0.017) and more physical limitations (P = 0.004) while women had greater life interference due to pain (P = 0.005). Mean differences in all pre- and post-treatment outcome measures demonstrated a statistically significant treatment response. However, men had lower post-treatment scores on the SF-36 health perception (P = 0.023), role limitations-physical (P = 0.021), and social functioning (P = 0.033) subscales. Significant within-gender reductions in opioid analgesic, NSAID, and benzodiazepine use were observed but no significant between-gender differences were identified.ConclusionsThese results support the hypothesis that pretreatment gender differences are present among fibromyalgia patients undergoing multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation and post-treatment gender differences persist despite improvements in physical and emotional functioning.

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