Perfectionism in Fibromyalgia

A.M. Pinto and colleagues presented an abstract at the EULAR 2016 Meeting in London [AB0841]: “Perfectionism in Chronic Pain: Are there Differences between Fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Healthy Controls?” They looked at 302 patients, of which 102 suffered from fibromyalgia. I’ll look at the result for fibromyalgia patients in the blog post. Conclusions: “FM [fibromyalgia] patients seem to be noticeably more perfectionistic than RA [rheumatoid arthritis] patients and HC [healthy controls], which in turn, do not differ significantly, in the majority of the perfectionism traits and cognitions. […] Perfectionism seems a variable of utmost importance, especially in FM, and may deserve consideration as a target for interventions.” What about RA patients suffering from fibromyalgia at the same time? Some rheumatologists call this fibromyalgianess, but I think fibromyalgia would be the more correct term. RA is a “good” source for pain.

I consider perfectionism as an important factor in the development and continuation of fibromyalgia via augmentation of stress. Maybe someone will look at this in a study. My thanks to A.M. Pinto and colleagues for opening this research area in fibromyalgia.

Reference:
A.M. Pinto and colleagues [AB0841]: “Perfectionism in Chronic Pain: Are there Differences between Fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Healthy Controls?” DOI: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2016-eular