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Measurement properties of the Brazilian online version of the Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool (FiRST)

Abstract

Objective

The Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool (FiRST) was developed to screen people with chronic pain for Fibromyalgia (FM), especially in primary health care settings. This study aimed to translate the FiRST into Brazilian Portuguese and evaluate its measurement properties for an online application.

Methods

After the process of translation and backtranslation, the FiRST was applied online in 483 adults with chronic pain (FM group n = 395; Chronic pain group n = 88), along with the Numerical Rating Scale for pain and fatigue, the Brief Pain Inventory, and the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire-Revised. A Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve was computed and the area under the curve (AUC) was used to determine the sensibility, specificity, and cutoff score for the FiRST. The Mann-Whitney test was used for quantitative variables and the Chi-square and the Fisher’s exact test, for the categorical variables with level of significance of 5%. Fleiss’ Kappa, Gwet’s AC1 and percentage of agreement were also calculated between test and retest.

Results

For all the questionnaires, the FM group presented higher scores, which mean a worst condition. The FiRST presented a sensitivity of 92.3%, and a specificity of 61.6% with 5 as the cut-off score. AUC, Fleiss’ Kappa, Gwet’s AC1 and percentage of agreement were, respectively, 0.82, 0.38, 0.63 and 71.8%.

Conclusion

The FiRST was translated into Brazilian Portuguese and the online version presented a good content validity and adequate measurement errors that allow FM patients to be screened among people with chronic pain.

Keywords
Chronic pain; Validation study; Fibromyalgia; Surveys and questionnaires

Prior presentation

A part of this manuscript has been presented at the 15th Brazilian Congress on Pain, held virtually September 4th to 7th 2021, with the title “Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool e o rastreio de pacientes com fibromialgia”.

Significance and innovations

  • The Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool (FiRST) was translated into Brazilian Portuguese and presented a good content validity and adequate measurement errors.

  • The Brazilian FiRST was collected online and compared with the 2016 American College of Rheumatology fibromyalgia diagnostic criteria and obtained good results.

  • The FiRST can also be used as an online tool to screen for fibromyalgia patients.

Introduction

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic pain condition that affects about 2% of people worldwide [11 Heidari F, Afshari M, Moosazadeh M. Prevalence of fibromyalgia in general population and patients, a systematic review and meta-analysis. Rheumatol Int. 2017;37:1527–39.] and its most common symptoms are the widespread pain, chronic fatigue, and sleep disorders, among others [22 Sarzi-Puttini P, Giorgi V, Marotto D, Atzeni F. Fibromyalgia: an update on clinical characteristics, aetiopathogenesis and treatment. Nat Rev Rheumatol. 2020;16:645–60.]. FM can occur as a primary disease or secondary issue to another existing condition [33 Wolfe F, Clauw DJ, Fitzcharles M-A, Goldenberg DL, Häuser W, Katz RL, et al. 2016 Revisions to the 2010/2011 fibromyalgia diagnostic criteria. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2016;46:319–29.]. Due to the lack of clinical exams that can provide evidence of its existence, FM is diagnosed late due to the difficulty in applying the criteria developed by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the complexity of the symptoms. According to the ACR, basically relying on the patients’ self-report; generalized pain, defined as pain in at least 4 of 5 regions; symptoms have been present at a similar level for at least 3 months; widespread pain index (WPI) ≥ 7 and symptom severity scale (SSS) score ≥ 5 (OR WPI of 4–6 and SSS score ≥ 9) [33 Wolfe F, Clauw DJ, Fitzcharles M-A, Goldenberg DL, Häuser W, Katz RL, et al. 2016 Revisions to the 2010/2011 fibromyalgia diagnostic criteria. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2016;46:319–29.].

Considering that the difficulty in diagnosing FM impacts on the number of medical appointments, exams, and medications [44 Choy E, Perrot S, Leon T, Kaplan J, Petersel D, Ginovker A, et al. A patient survey of the impact of fibromyalgia and the journey to diagnosis. BMC Health Serv Res. 2010;10:102.], some instruments were developed to add to the screening suggested by the ACR (e.g., the “London Fibromyalgia Epidemiology Study Screening Questionnaire [55 White KP, Speechley M, Harth M, Ostbye T. The London Fibromyalgia Epidemiology Study: the prevalence of fibromyalgia syndrome in London, Ontario. J Rheumatol. 1999;26:1570–6.]” and the “Regional Pain Scale [66 Wolfe F, Rasker JJ. The Symptom Intensity Scale, fibromyalgia, and the meaning of fibromyalgia-like symptoms. J Rheumatol. 2006;33:2291–9.]”). Among those instruments, there is the Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool (FiRST®) by Perrot et al. [77 Perrot S, Bouhassira D, Fermanian J. Development and validation of the Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool (FiRST). Pain. 2010;150:250–6.], composed of six items with answer options (yes or no) regarding the main features related to FM, such as pain, fatigue, and sleep. However, this instrument was not translated into Brazilian Portuguese, and nor has it had its measurement properties evaluated.

Usually, the first contact a patient makes with the healthcare system occurs through primary health care, responsible for the assessment, treatment, and in needed, referral of that patient [88 Nuernberg Back CG, Liebano RE, Avila MA. Perspectives of implementing the biopsychosocial model to treat chronic musculoskeletal pain in primary health care. Pain Manag. 2021;11:217–25.], having tools, especially online, that help improve FM diagnosis while shortening the time it takes until the final diagnosis is helpful and may lead to better FM treatment. As such, the aim of the present study was to translate and assess the measurement properties of the online version of the Brazilian FiRST®.

Methods

This is an instrument validation online study that assessed people with chronic pain and FM. The study was entirely conducted online due to the COVID-19 pandemics and period of social isolation from November 2020 to August 2021. The protocol has been approved by the institutional ethics committee of Universidade Federal de São Carlos (CAAE: 10896719.0.0000.5504, protocol number 4.193.940). The present study was performed according to the Guidelines for the Process of Cross-cultural Adaptation of Self-Report Measures [99 Beaton DE, Bombardier C, Guillemin F, Ferraz MB. Guidelines for the Process of Cross-Cultural Adaptation of Self-Report Measures. Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 2000;25:3186–91.] and the COnsensus-based Standards for the Selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) [1010 Mokkink LB, Prinsen CA, Patrick DL, Alonso J, Bouter LM, Vet HC de, et al. COSMIN manual for systematic reviews of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs). 2018.]. Because FiRST® is a screening tool, we evaluated the content validity (degree to which the content of as instrument is an adequate reflection of the construct being measured), test-retest reliability (degree to which a measurement is free from measurement errors over time) and measurement errors (systematic and random error in a patient’s score that is not attributed to actual changes in the construct being measured) of the FiRST® [1111 De Vet HCW, Terwee CB, Mokkink LB, Knol DL. Measurement in Medicine - A practical guide. 1st edition. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2011.].

The study was disclosed in social medias (such as Insta-gram® and Facebook®) and through messaging application (WhatsApp®). All people who manifested interest in taking part in the study were contacted and checked for eligibility criteria. All those who were included in the study received an online form (via GoogleForms®) and agreed to take part in the study by clicking on the “I agree to take part in the present study” after reading the informed online consent form. All participants received an online booklet with information regarding FM / chronic pain after the end of their participation.

Participants over 18 years old that could read and write in Brazilian Portuguese were included if they presented report of chronic pain (≥ 3 months) and after that, they were divided into two groups: FM group and chronic pain group. For the FM group, people should have the FM diagnosis (participants were considered as with FM if they fulfilled the ACR 2016 FM diagnostic criteria [33 Wolfe F, Clauw DJ, Fitzcharles M-A, Goldenberg DL, Häuser W, Katz RL, et al. 2016 Revisions to the 2010/2011 fibromyalgia diagnostic criteria. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2016;46:319–29.], including the WPI ≥ 7 and the SSS ≥ 5 or WPI = 4–6 and SSS ≥ 9). For the chronic pain group, participants should have a history of chronic pain (> 3 months), but no FM. Participants were excluded from the analysis if they had history of tumors, traumas or acute infections and self-report of severe psychiatric illnesses, including severe depression, bipolarity and schizophrenia.

Initially, we obtained authorization to use FiRST® by the MAPI Research Trust (ID 109,594). The translation process occurred according to the recommendations of Beaton et al. [99 Beaton DE, Bombardier C, Guillemin F, Ferraz MB. Guidelines for the Process of Cross-Cultural Adaptation of Self-Report Measures. Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 2000;25:3186–91.] in 5 different steps: (1) translation; (2) consensus of the translated version; (3) backtranslation; (4) consensus on the backtranslation; (5) development of the version to be tested. The translation was performed by three Brazilian Portuguese speakers with fluency in English, in which two of them were physical therapists and other was a healthcare professional. After the consensus, the translated version was backtranslated by two native English speakers with fluency on Brazilian Portuguese, one of them not related to a healthcare profession. After the second consensus, the content validity of the FiRST® was tested by 10 healthcare professionals (3 physicians, 6 physical therapists and 1 nurse), all of which have experience with Rheumatology patients, especially FM. After this assessment, a sample of 20 women with FM tested the final FiRST® version. They were asked to report any difficulties in the understanding of the instrument or the instructions to fulfill the questionnaire; this step was performed by means of interview with each participant, who had to describe what they thought each of the sentences meant. All participants of this step considered the instrument understandable, and related to the FM symptoms they reported; no suggestions were made regarding words or sentences. After this test, the final Brazilian FiRST® was obtained.

For data collection, an initial assessment was designed to provide the sample’s demographical and clinical characteristics, including the following instruments: WPI, SSS, FiRST®, Numerical Rating Scale (NRS), Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire-Revised (FIQ-R®) and Brief Pain Inventory (BPI®). Seven to ten days after answering the questionnaires, participants were asked to answer again the translated version of the FiRST® for test-retest reliability and measurement errors. This period of time followed the COSMIN recommendations in which seven days after the test is the minimum time for the patients not to have changed in the measured construct and not to remember their answers to the instrument [1111 De Vet HCW, Terwee CB, Mokkink LB, Knol DL. Measurement in Medicine - A practical guide. 1st edition. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2011.].

FiRST® is a screening tool for FM in patients with diffuse chronic pain [77 Perrot S, Bouhassira D, Fermanian J. Development and validation of the Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool (FiRST). Pain. 2010;150:250–6.]. It is a self-completed instrument composed of six items with answer options “yes” or “no”, in which the cut-off score of 5 points, which means that people who score 5 or 6 are likely to have FM. In the development study, FiRST® presented a sensitivity of 90.5%, a specificity of 85.7% (AUC = 0.93) and excellent test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.87) [77 Perrot S, Bouhassira D, Fermanian J. Development and validation of the Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool (FiRST). Pain. 2010;150:250–6.].

The NRS is a single item instrument that was used for pain and fatigue intensity. We evaluated pain in four different situations: at rest – “Currently and at the moment when you are sitting/lying on the couch watching your favorite TV show, do you feel pain?”; after body movement – “Currently and when you walked from the supermarket parking lot to the grocery store or crossed the street to work, do you feel pain?”; the lowest – “In the last week, what number corresponds to the most pain you have felt?”; and the greatest pain in the previous week – “In the last week, what number corresponds to the least pain you felt?” [1212 Avila MA, Camargo PR, Ribeiro IL, Zamunér AR, Salvini TF. Three-dimensional scapular motion during arm elevation is altered in women with fibromyalgia. Clin Biomech. 2014;29:815–21.]. For fatigue, we asked “During the answer to this questionnaire, which number best corresponds to your state of fatigue/body tiredness?”. In all questions about pain/fatigue, zero means no pain/fatigue and 10 was the worst pain/fatigue imaginable. In chronic pain conditions, NRS had a moderate to high test-retest reliability (0.67 to 0.96) [1313 Kahl C, Cleland JA. Visual analogue scale, numeric pain rating scale and the McGill pain Questionnaire: an overview of psychometric properties. Phys Ther Rev. 2005;10:123–8.].

The FIQ-R® assesses the impact of FM on life in relation to functional capacity, professional status, psychological disorders and physical symptoms [1414 Bennett RM, Friend R, Jones KD, Ward R, Han BK, Ross RL. The Revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQR): validation and psychometric properties. Arthritis Res Ther. 2009;11:R120.]. The Brazilian version of FIQ-R® had excellent test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.75) and comprises 21 items that investigate three domains: function (9 items, 30 points), global impact (2 items, 20 points) and symptoms (10 items, 50 points) [1414 Bennett RM, Friend R, Jones KD, Ward R, Han BK, Ross RL. The Revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQR): validation and psychometric properties. Arthritis Res Ther. 2009;11:R120., 1515 Lupi JB, Carvalho de Abreu DC, Ferreira MC, Oliveira RDR de, Chaves TC. Brazilian Portuguese version of the Revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQR-Br): cross-cultural validation, reliability, and construct and structural validation. Disabil Rehabil. 2017;39:1650–63.]. Scores range from 0 to 100, with the latter meaningful of a worst condition. The minimal important clinical difference for the FIQ-R® is 27 points [1616 Surendran S, Mithun CB. FRI0647 Estimation of minimum clinically important difference in fibromyalgia for fiqr using bpi as the anchor measure. In: FRIDAY, 15 JUNE 2018. BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and European League Against Rheumatism; 2018. p. 845.1–845.].

The BPI® assesses pain severity and impact on a person’s life with 15 items that assess presence, severity, location, functional impact, used therapeutic strategies, and treatment efficacy in an 11-point scale ranging from zero (no pain/no interference) to 10 (as bad as it can be). High scores indicate worse pain severity and impact. The Brazilian version of the BPI® presented a two-dimensional structure (pain severity and interference) and excellent internal consistency (α = 0.87–0.91) [1717 Ferreira KA, Teixeira MJ, Mendonza TR, Cleeland CS. Validation of brief pain inventory to Brazilian patients with pain. Support Care Cancer. 2011;19:505–11.].

Statistical analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 26, IBM, USA). Gwet’s AC1 agreement was performed in RStudio. The characterization of the sample was represented by frequency (n, %), mean, and standard deviation (SD). To compare the FM and chronic pain groups, we used Mann-Whitney test, Chi-square and Fisher’s exact test.

To set a FiRST cutoff point for FM screening, we used the assessment by the ACR criterion to classify participants with and without FM. The area under the curve (AUC) of receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve was used to determine sensibility, specificity, and cut-off scores to determine differences between chronic pain patients with and without FM diagnosis. The AUC ≥ 0.8 indicates excellent accuracy [1818 Swets JA. Measuring the Accuracy of Diagnostic Systems. Sci (80-). 1988;240:1285–93.].

Test-retest reliability was assessed by Fleiss’ Kappa (κ), and measurement errors were calculated based on the percentage of agreement between the test and retest FiRST® scores. If there was a discrepancy between Fleiss’ Kappa and percentage of agreement, agreement was assessed using Gwet’s AC1 [1919 Wongpakaran N, Wongpakaran T, Wedding D, Gwet KL. A comparison of Cohen’s Kappa and Gwet’s AC1 when calculating inter-rater reliability coefficients: a study conducted with personality disorder samples. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2013;13(1):61.]. We considered the following values of κ, AC1 and percentage of agreement: κ and AC1 < 0.20 and percentage of agreement 0–4% were considered as “none”; κ and AC1 = 0.21–0.39 and percentage of agreement 4–15% as “minimal”; κ and AC1 = 0.40–0.59 and percentage of agreement 15–35% as “weak”; κ and AC1 = 0.60–0.79 and percentage of agreement 35–63% as “moderate”; κ and AC1 = 0.80–0.90 and percentage of agreement 64–81% as “strong”; and κ and AC1 > 0.90, and percentage of agreement 82–100% as “almost perfect” [1919 Wongpakaran N, Wongpakaran T, Wedding D, Gwet KL. A comparison of Cohen’s Kappa and Gwet’s AC1 when calculating inter-rater reliability coefficients: a study conducted with personality disorder samples. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2013;13(1):61., 2020 McHugh ML. Interrater reliability: the kappa statistic. Biochem Med. 2012;22:276–82.]. The significance level of all tests was 5%.

Results

The translated version of the FiRST® was tested by 10 healthcare professionals (mean age: 36.8 ± 12.7 years old; mean scholarity 17.7 ± 2.8 years; experience with Rheumatology patients: 14.1 ± 12.0 years) and 20 women with FM (age: 45.9 ± 9.2 years old; mean scholarity: 8.1 ± 5.7 years). Healthcare professionals did not suggest any changes to the sentences, and agreed on the translated version. No language adaptations were needed and the women did not present difficulties to understand the instrument. After that, the final Brazilian FiRST® was obtained.

For the evaluation of test-retest reliability, measurement errors and cut-off point, we received 573 answers during data collection period. Six people did not agree to take part in the study, 26 reported not feeling pain in the same intensity for at least 3 months (which mischaracterizes chronic pain), and 58 presented at least one of the exclusion criteria: not answering the FiRST® instrument (n = 1), reported schizophrenia (n = 2), reported borderline disturbance (n = 4), reported panic syndrome (n = 9), reported bipolar disturbance (n = 19), and reported severe depression (n = 23). As such, we had 483 valid answers, 395 with FM and 88 without FM. From them, 39 participants with FM answered the instruments in 7–10 days after the first evaluation. Table 1 shows the clinical and demographical characteristics of the participants.

Table 1
Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of both groups

Table 2 shows the scores of the NRS for pain and fatigue, the BPI® and the FIQ-R® for FM and chronic pain groups. The FM group had higher scores for all questionnaires, indicating a greater pain intensity, fatigue intensity, pain impact, and severity and FM impact (p < 0.001).

Table 2
Questionnaires’ scores for the participants of both groups, presented as mean (standard deviation)

The ROC curve (Fig. 1) indicated a sensitivity of 92.3% and a specificity of 61.6% with a cut-off score of 4.5. Considering that the FiRST® only scores whole numbers, the cut-off score can be set at 5, as the original instrument. The Positive Predictive Value was 93.4% and the Negative Predictive Value, 57.7%; the positive likelihood ratio was 2.47, while the negative likelihood ratio was 0.12. The Area Under the Curve (AUC) was 0.819 (95%CI 0.754–0.883, SE 0.033), indicating a good ability to distinguish people with FM from people with chronic pain without FM. Table 3 shows the agreement of participants with and without FM by the 2016 ACR and the FiRST®. Among the 395 people with FM by the 2016 ACR, 357 (90.4%) were also classified with FM and 38 (9.6%) without FM by the FiRST®.

Fig. 1
Receiver Operating Characteristics curve for the Brazilian version of the FiRST instrument
Table 3
Agreement between FiRST and 2016 American College of Rheumatology fibromyalgia screening

For the test-retest reliability, FiRST® had a minimal value [κ = 0.38 (95% CI 0.15–0.62); p = 0.001]. Gwet’s AC1 showed moderate agreement between the test and retest [AC1 = 0.63 (95% CI 0.42–0.84)]. For the measurement errors, the percentage of agreement between test and retest was strong (71.8%), and of disagreement was 28.2%.

Discussion

The present results show that the Brazilian online version of the FiRST® was successfully translated, and presented a good content validity and adequate errors measurement. Differently from the other versions, this was the first to be applied online and to consider the 2016 ACR diagnostic criteria. Also, it was possible to observe that the FM group presented higher scores for all questionnaires applied, which means a worst condition.

FM has a clinical diagnosis [22 Sarzi-Puttini P, Giorgi V, Marotto D, Atzeni F. Fibromyalgia: an update on clinical characteristics, aetiopathogenesis and treatment. Nat Rev Rheumatol. 2020;16:645–60.] and it usually takes years to be diagnosed and treated [2121 Doebl S, Macfarlane GJ, Hollick RJ. “No one wants to look after the fibro patient”. Understanding models, and patient perspectives, of care for fibromyalgia: reviews of current evidence. Pain. 2020;161:1716–25.], as such, a more rapid diagnosis would imply in a sooner intervention [2222 Wolfe F, Fibromyalgianess. Arthritis Rheum. 2009;61:715–6.], which could prevent patients from suffering long-term consequences of their pain and symptoms. Along with the changes in the way one diagnosis FM through the years [33 Wolfe F, Clauw DJ, Fitzcharles M-A, Goldenberg DL, Häuser W, Katz RL, et al. 2016 Revisions to the 2010/2011 fibromyalgia diagnostic criteria. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2016;46:319–29., 2323 Wolfe F, Smythe HA, Yunus MB, Bennett RM, Bombardier C, Goldenberg DL, et al. The american college of rheumatology 1990 criteria for the classification of fibromyalgia. Arthritis Rheum. 1990;33:160–72., 2424 Wolfe F, Clauw DJ, Fitzcharles M-A, Goldenberg DL, Katz RS, Mease P, et al. The American College of Rheumatology Preliminary Diagnostic Criteria for Fibromyalgia and Measurement of Symptom Severity. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2010;62:600–10.], instruments that allow healthcare professionals to screen for FM in different clinical settings makes this diagnostic process faster. In this sense, the FiRST® was one of the first instruments with this proposal, and has been translated into several languages, such as French [2525 Fan A, Tournadre A, Pereira B, Tatar Z, Couderc M, Malochet-Guinamand S, et al. Performance of Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool (FiRST) to detect fibromyalgia syndrome in rheumatic diseases. Rheumatology. 2016;55:1746–50.], Spanish [2626 Torres X, Collado A, Gómez E, Arias A, Cabrera-Villalba S, Messina OD, et al. The Spanish version of the Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool: translation, validity and reliability. Rheumatology. 2013;52:2283–91., 2727 Collado A, Torres X, Messina OD, Vidal LF, Clark P, Ríos C, et al. The Discriminatory Ability of the Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool (FiRST): An International Study in Spain and Four Latin American Countries. Pain Med. 2016;17:931–9.], Greek [2828 Zis P, Brozou V, Stavropoulou E, Argyra E, Siafaka I, Kararizou E, et al. Validation of the Greek Version of the Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool. Pain Pract. 2017;17:925–9.] and Turkish [2929 Celiker R, Altan L, Rezvani A, Aktas I, Tastekin N, Dursun E, et al. Reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the fibromyalgia rapid screening tool (FiRST). J Phys Ther Sci. 2017;29:340–4.].

The online Brazilian FiRST® obtained similar results regarding specificity, sensitivity, positive and negative likelihood ratios as the other translated versions. Zis et al. [2828 Zis P, Brozou V, Stavropoulou E, Argyra E, Siafaka I, Kararizou E, et al. Validation of the Greek Version of the Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool. Pain Pract. 2017;17:925–9.] obtained a sensitivity of 86% and a specificity of 83% for the cut-off score of 5 points, with a positive likelihood ratio of 4.97 and a negative likelihood ratio of 0.17, using both ACR 1990 [2323 Wolfe F, Smythe HA, Yunus MB, Bennett RM, Bombardier C, Goldenberg DL, et al. The american college of rheumatology 1990 criteria for the classification of fibromyalgia. Arthritis Rheum. 1990;33:160–72.] and 2010 [2424 Wolfe F, Clauw DJ, Fitzcharles M-A, Goldenberg DL, Katz RS, Mease P, et al. The American College of Rheumatology Preliminary Diagnostic Criteria for Fibromyalgia and Measurement of Symptom Severity. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2010;62:600–10.] as diagnostic criteria for FM patients, and compared them with patients with osteoarthritis. Torres et al. [2626 Torres X, Collado A, Gómez E, Arias A, Cabrera-Villalba S, Messina OD, et al. The Spanish version of the Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool: translation, validity and reliability. Rheumatology. 2013;52:2283–91.] used the ACR 1990 for FM patients and compared them to patients with other chronic pain conditions such as arthrosis and polyneuropathies, and obtained a sensitivity of 89% and a specificity of 55.3%, with a positive likelihood ratio of 1.99 and a negative likelihood ratio of 0.20 for the cut-off score of 5 points. Celiker et al. [2929 Celiker R, Altan L, Rezvani A, Aktas I, Tastekin N, Dursun E, et al. Reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the fibromyalgia rapid screening tool (FiRST). J Phys Ther Sci. 2017;29:340–4.] used the ACR 2013 modified diagnostic criteria [3030 Bennett RM, Friend R, Marcus D, Bernstein C, Han BK, Yachoui R, et al. Criteria for the diagnosis of fibromyalgia: Validation of the modified 2010 preliminary American college of rheumatology criteria and the development of alternative criteria. Arthritis Care Res. 2014;66:1364–73.], and for the cut-off score of 5 points, obtained a sensitivity of 83.8% and a specificity of 68.4%, with a positive likelihood ratio of 2.65 and a negative likelihood ratio of 0.24. The Brazilian FiRST®, when compared with the other versions, obtained similar values of sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative likelihood ratios, even with the data collection occurring in an online manner. Online patient assessment reduces evaluation time, and turns it easier for professionals to access data as well as to compare patients’ pre- and post-intervention status. Also, data cloud storage prevents data from being lost, as well as reduces the number of paper files that need to be stored for years. For the patient, sometimes not being in front of a healthcare professional turns it easier to report things that are considered taboo, such as substance abuse or suicidal ideation.

Regarding diagnostic criteria for FM, two scales are currently used (WPI and SSS) proposed by Wolfe et al. in 2011 [3131 Wolfe F, Clauw DJ, Fitzcharles M-A, Goldenberg DL, Häuser W, Katz RS, et al. Fibromyalgia Criteria and Severity Scales for Clinical and Epidemiological Studies: A Modification of the ACR Preliminary Diagnostic Criteria for Fibromyalgia. J Rheumatol. 2011;38:1113–22.], updated in 2016 [33 Wolfe F, Clauw DJ, Fitzcharles M-A, Goldenberg DL, Häuser W, Katz RL, et al. 2016 Revisions to the 2010/2011 fibromyalgia diagnostic criteria. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2016;46:319–29.], and adapted for tele-medicine in the Brazilian population in 2019 [3232 Daltrozo JB, Paupitz JA, Neves FS. Validity of fibromyalgia survey questionnaire (2016) assessed by telephone interview and cross-cultural adaptation to Brazilian Portuguese language. Adv Rheumatol. 2020;60:37.], whose reliability and internal consistency have already been established (κ > 0.6; Cronbach’s alpha > 0.73). This occurred because the authors verified the criteria for the diagnosis of FM presented in previous classifications (such as the use of trigger points) should focus more efforts on the patient’s self-report via three observations: (1) presence of pain in at least four of the five body regions; (2) presence of symptoms with similar severity for at least three months; (3) absence of chronic conditions and/or diseases that justify the symptoms - we confirmed these criteria in all patients who had a clinical diagnosis of FM.

A reliable tool to screen for FM can turns it easier for professionals to suspect on the diagnosis and provide better healthcare in all levels of attention. This is particularly valuable considering the Primary Health Care, usually the entrance door through which one individual assesses the healthcare systems. By working in a biopsy-chosocial model of attention to chronic pain [88 Nuernberg Back CG, Liebano RE, Avila MA. Perspectives of implementing the biopsychosocial model to treat chronic musculoskeletal pain in primary health care. Pain Manag. 2021;11:217–25.], such as FM, it is possible to better articulate with all professionals that are part of the staff who could provide attention to the patient that is likely to have FM diagnosis. Even if the instrument has a number of false negatives, it is possible to treat him/her into the fibromyalgianess concept [2222 Wolfe F, Fibromyalgianess. Arthritis Rheum. 2009;61:715–6.] and provide care aiming to diminish the impacts of a long-term exposure to chronic pain.

After the COVID-19 pandemics hit the world, health-care professionals had to learn new strategies to assess and treat patients with chronic pain [3333 Puntillo F, Giglio M, Brienza N, Viswanath O, Urits I, Kaye AD, et al. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on chronic pain management: Looking for the best way to deliver care. Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol. 2020;34:529–37.] and online assessment instruments became popular and much more used since then. The Brazilian version of the FiRST® was validated to be applied online, which can turn the screening process even easier and faster, allowing any health-care professional to identify and refer those patients more adequately. Although it has limitations in terms of scope, the advent of validation of online instruments is a scientific and technological advancement in the health area, because it guarantees the simultaneous screening of several patients and optimization of professional’s time [3232 Daltrozo JB, Paupitz JA, Neves FS. Validity of fibromyalgia survey questionnaire (2016) assessed by telephone interview and cross-cultural adaptation to Brazilian Portuguese language. Adv Rheumatol. 2020;60:37.].

The present study has some strengths; the online data collection allowed people from all over the country to take part in the study, and they had a chance to answer the Google Forms from wherever they were, giving them a chance to complete the forms when they were most comfortable, without the need to travel to a certain location for data collection. Also, the online validation may serve as a way of implementing this instrument as a prior patient’s assessment, in a manner that the patient can go to the healthcare facility already screened for FM. However, there were some limitations of the present study as well; for example, regarding the online data collection, which did not allow researchers to assess participants and confirm their diagnosis. This form of data collection prevents participants to clarify possible issues regarding their comprehension of the questions. Likewise, only people with access to internet and an e-mail account could take part in the study, as well as only people who could read. This is an important issue as it does not reflect the Brazilian reality, in which 21% of the Brazilians do not have access to internet [3434 IBGE. Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. Uso de internet, televisão e celular no Brasil. 2021.] and about 11% of people ≥ 40 years old and about 18% of people ≥ 60 years old are illiterate [3535 IBGE. Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios Contínua (PNAD contínua) - Educação. 2019.].

Conclusion

The FiRST® was translated into Brazilian Portuguese and the online version presented a good content validity and adequate errors measurement that allow FM patients to be screened with a cut-off score of 5 points.

  • Funding
    Research funding: This study was partially financed Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - Brazil (CAPES) - Financing Code 001. Role of funding sources: The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
  • Data availability
    The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to personal content that can lead to participant identification but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
  • Declarations
    Ethics approval and consent to participate
    The present study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Universidade Federal de São Carlos (CAAE: 10896719.0.0000.5504, protocol number 4.193.940). All participants read and agreed with the informed consent term they downloaded prior to participation.
  • Consent for publication
    Not applicable.
  • Publisher's Note
    Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all participants of the study.

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Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    02 Dec 2022
  • Date of issue
    2022

History

  • Received
    22 June 2022
  • Accepted
    12 Oct 2022
  • Published
    31 Oct 2022
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