Psychiatric and Personality Disorder Survey of Patients with Fibromyalgia

Objective: The impact of comorbid rheumatologic disease and psychiatric illness has been investigated previously and shows an overall negative impact on patients’ quality of life, function, and mortality. In particular, fibromyalgia (FM) has a close relationship with concurrent diagnoses of psychiatric disorders. To our knowledge, there have been only a handful of studies that relate FM to psychiatric disorders, one that investigates personality traits, and one that directly examines personality disorders. This survey examined the prevalence of personality and other psychiatric disorders in fibromyalgia patients. Methods: The study sample consisted of 48 subjects who were diagnosed with fibromyalgia by the 1990 American College of Rheumatology criteria. Psychiatric disorder criteria were specified by means of PDSQ (Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire) and PDQ-4 (Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire). Results: Forty-one (85.4%) patients with fibromyalgia had a nonpersonality psychiatric disorder. The most common disorders were somatic disorder (75.0%) and dysthymic disorder (54.2%). Twenty-nine patients had a mood disorder (60.4%), much higher than the average population (22.9%). Twenty-seven (56.3%) patients presented with a personality disorder. Avoidant personality disorder (27.1%) was the most common, followed by depressive personality disorder (25.0%). Conclusion: Mood disorders occur at a higher prevalence in fibromyalgia patients than in the general population. Psychiatric and personality disorders are very common in patients with fibromyalgia.