RESEARCH - Women's health issues with fibromyalgia syndrome

[Guest guest]

J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2006 Nov;15(9):1035-45.

Women's health issues with fibromyalgia syndrome.

University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Nursing, Chicago, Illinois,

USA. jshaver@...

BACKGROUND: Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) involves multiple sensory, somatic,

and cognitive symptoms that are bound to affect or be affected by physical

and mental health status and behavioral components of daily life. METHODS:

From a telephone survey of 442 women with and 205 women without FMS as

volunteers, data were compared on (1) general health status, (2)

reproductive and sleep-related diagnoses, and (3) lifestyle health

behaviors. RESULTS: All multiple or logistics regression analyses for group

differences were controlled for age, body mass index (BMI), race, employment

status, marital status, having a college degree, low household income, and

having ever been diagnosed with depression, with a Bonferroni p value

correction for multiple indicators. Accordingly, FMS negatively impacted

both perceived physical and mental health status, although relatively more

so for physical (p < 0.017). Women with FMS were more likely to have had

reproductive health or sleep-related diagnoses, including premenstrual

syndrome, dysmenorrhea, breast cysts, bladder cystitis, sleep apnea,

restless leg syndrome, and abnormal leg movements (p < 0.0125). They were

calculated to use less than half as many calories per week as control women

(689 +/- 1293 vs. 1499 +/- 1584 kcal/week, p < 0.05) and had more sleep

pattern difficulties (p < 0.0125), more negative changes in sexual function

(greater odds for 5 of 10 indicators at p < 0.005), and lower alcohol use

(odds ratio = 0.39, p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: Patients with FMS deserve careful assessment for reproductive

conditions and sleep-related functional disorders. Besides more research

into mechanisms underlying symptoms, intervention testing specifically to

alleviate sleep problems, low physical activity levels, and sexual

dysfunction should be paramount.

PMID: 17125422

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed & cmd=Retrieve & dopt=Abstra\

ctPlus & list_uids=17125422

Not an MD