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A 10-week individualized cognitive-behavioral therapy program (when combined with routine treatment) improves depression, anxiety, sleep quality, despair, and overall disease severity in fibromyalgia syndrome.
Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) extends far beyond chronic pain, often trapping patients in a cycle of anxiety, depression, poor sleep, and emotional distress. New evidence from a randomized controlled trial indicates that breaking this cycle may require more than medication alone.
Researchers found that integrating individualized cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) into routine care elicited prominent improvements across both psychological and disease-related outcomes, while routine treatment alone failed to deliver comparable benefits. The single-blind trial enrolled 70 patients meeting the 2016 American College of Rheumatology diagnostic criteria for FMS. Volunteers were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive either 10 weeks of psychologist-led individualized CBT + routine treatment (n=35) or routine treatment alone (n=35).
Outcomes were checked prior to and after the intervention using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS-A and HADS-D), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), Jenkins Sleep Scale (JSS), and Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ). Overall, 57 volunteers completed the study, including 23 in the CBT group and 34 in the control group. Baseline demographic characteristics and clinical scores did not differ markedly between the groups.
Those receiving individualized CBT experienced consistent and clinically meaningful improvements. Median anxiety (HADS-A) scores dropped from 13.00 to 10.00, while the median FIQ score, reflecting the overall impact of fibromyalgia, dropped from 71.80 to 51.52. Hopelessness (BHS) was also noticeably reduced, with median scores falling from 7.00 to 4.00. Remarkable improvements were additionally noted in depression (HADS-D) and sleep quality (JSS). In contrast, those receiving routine treatment alone showed no pivotal changes in any of the evaluated outcomes.
The broad improvements observed across emotional, sleep, and disease-related outcomes position individualized CBT as a promising companion to routine therapy, offering a more holistic approach to tackling the complex challenges of fibromyalgia.
Rheumatology International
Individualized cognitive-behavioral therapy improves anxiety, depression, sleep quality, hopelessness, and disease severity in fibromyalgia syndrome: a single-blind randomized controlled trial
Burhan Fatih Kocyigit et al.
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