• John W Reich, Lisa M Johnson, Alex J Zautra, and Mary C Davis.
• Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-1104, USA. john.reich@asu.edu
• J Behav Med. 2006 Aug 1;29(4):307-16.

AbstractFibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic musculoskeletal pain condition poorly understood in terms of etiology and treatment by both physicians and patients. This condition of "uncertainty of illness" was examined as a variable involved in the adjustment of FMS patients, relating it to their depression, anxiety, affect, and coping styles. Fifty-one community-residing FMS patients provided self-report information on subsets of adjustment variables. Both cross-sectional and more dynamic longitudinal analyses showed that illness uncertainty was significantly associated with anxiety, negative affect, and avoidant and passive coping. Its positive relationship with depression was eliminated when a control variable, pain helplessness, was included as a covariate. Longitudinally, illness uncertainty interacted with interpersonally stressful daily events in predicting reports of reduced positive affect, suggesting that illness uncertainty acts as a risk factor for affective disturbances during stressful times. Implications of these results for therapeutic interventions are discussed.

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