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Effects of a nursing intervention in the control of symptoms in patients with fibromyalgia. Case report

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:

Fibromyalgia is a non-inflammatory rheumatic syndrome, characterized by diffuse chronic musculoskeletal pain, usually accompanied by other symptoms not related to the locomotor system such as depression, fatigue, cognitive alterations, impaired sleep quality, and headache. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a nursing intervention in the control of pain and depressive symptoms of patients with fibromyalgia.

METHODS:

A quasi-experimental study conducted through the electronic database review of a private chronic patients monitoring service. The sample included 353 patients with fibromyalgia who were attended in the period from 2014 to 2017. The nursing intervention included a home visit and the application of educational strategies over the telephone for 6 months. Participants were assessed using the verbal numerical rating scale and the Patient Health Questionnaire scale. The comparison between the continuous variables was performed by the t-paired test, and the comparison between the categorical variables was performed using the McNemar-Bowker test. The level of significance was set at p<0.05.

RESULTS:

Nursing intervention promoted a significant reduction in the average pain intensity (p<0.001) after the intervention. The reduction in the average depression score, however, was not significant (p=0.093), but the intervention significantly reduced the cases of moderate and very severe depression (p=0.01).

CONCLUSION:

Nursing intervention by telephone showed a positive impact on pain control and reduction of depressive symptoms in patients with fibromyalgia.

Keywords:
Depression; Fibromyalgia; Nursing; Pain

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