Turkish Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2006 , Vol 52 , Num 1

Depression Levels and the Ways of Coping with Pain in Patients with Chronic Pain and Fibromyalgia Syndromes

Ercan MADENCİ 1 ,Hasan Herken 2 ,Erman Yağız 3 ,Sema Keven 3 ,Savaş Gürsoy 4
1 Gaziantep Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Fizik Tedavi ve Rehabilitasyon Anabilim Dalı, Gaziantep, Türkiye
2 Gaziantep Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Psikiyatri Anabilim Dalı, Gaziantep
3 Gaziantep Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Fiziksel Tıp ve Rehabilitasyon Anabilim Dalı, Gaziantep
4 Gaziantep University, Research Hospital, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Gaziantep, Turkey

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation between depression level and the ways of coping with pain in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome.
 

Materials and Methods: In this study 65 patients with chronic pain and 55 patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (total 120 patients) were compared with their depression levels and the ability of coping with pain. Coping with Pain Questionnaire, Beck Depression Scale, Hamilton Depression and Anxiety Scale and Visual Analogue Scale were used on patients. It was examined whether there was a relationship between the points of all this scales. Statistical evaluation of data was done by using t-test.
 

Results: There was a significant increase in helplessness which is parallel with depression levels of all patients (p<0.01). There was no significant relationship between the ways of coping with increasing pain (p>0.05).
 

Conclusion: Pain, especially when it continues for a long time can cause common and important psychological problems. There are publications which show that knowing the ways of getting rid of the chronic pain have a positive effect on treatment. The patients who learn positive ways of coping with pain can live more productively with it. This study has found out the need of more advanced studies in order to search how patients are able to cope with the pain from different origins and investigate the relationship between the ways of coping with the pain and the ways of treatment. 

Keywords : Fibromyalgia syndrome, chronic pain, depressio