Psychological Predictors of Fibromyalgia Among High School Students, 2022, Hamdan-Mansour et al

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to examine prediction power of psychological factors (i.e., alexithymia and psychological distress) on fibromyalgia among high school students. A cross-sectional, correlational design was used. Data related to alexithymia, psychological distress, and fibromyalgia were collected from 483 high school students from the northern part of Jordan using stratified cluster random sampling. Results showed that psychological distress is a significant predictor of fibromyalgia (odds ratio = 1.1, p < 0.001). Significant differences were found between males and females in relation to alexithymia (t = −4.87, p < 0.001), psychological distress (t = −6.0, p < 0.001), and fibromyalgia (χ2 = 4.14, p = 0.04, phi = 0.07). Age was only significantly correlated with alexithymia (r = 0.06, p < 0.05). Given the relationship among psychological distress, alexithymia, and fibromyalgia, mental health professionals should carefully observe psychological disturbances among high school students.

Paywall, https://journals.healio.com/doi/10.3928/02793695-20220325-04

 

If only we could pick the right lottery numbers with our thoughts!

 

Using fuzzy maths on unreliable guesstimates of arbitrary concepts. Shmart. Those scores have no accuracy, let alone any specificity. They are as vague as they can be and most people respond to different interpretations of the question since the questions are so vague they can basically have all the possible interpretations, regardless of whether it's good or not, rational or excessive.

By comparison to this, phrenology was serious pseudoscience. They measured things and correlated real measurements with their fanciful interpretations. They meant absolutely nothing and any interpretation is just as fanciful, but it is still far more serious than using advanced fuzzy maths based on vague scores from concepts so dubious it's not clear if they actually mean anything more in reality than Dungeons and dragons character statistics.

"Oh, wow, people with an average sagacity score of 13.38876 do better on average than people with a combined dexterity-strength scatterplot density map at dealing with frustration scores about pain higher than 7.49074 but also lower than 6.92962, mental health coaches should be on the lookout for any significant drop on the sagacity-wisdom axis of personal interdependence mindful awareness."

Am I doing biopsychosocial right? Seems about right, not as if there's an actual difference here.

 

To say something is a "significant predictor" of something else is not making a causal statement but sounds to the ear like it is. In this case, you could just as easily say fibromyalgia is a significant predictor of psychological distress. It's just a statistical "predictor," not a chronological one.

 

But they probably aren't. The abstracts suggests that they are looking at whether the existence of the psychological factors will predict that the person already has FM. The usage of predictor in studies like this is often not temporal, merely associative.

And of course anyone with a diagnosis of FM is likely to be in a bad way psychologically as a result.

 

but they are assuming distress might cause fibromyalgia, in fact a change in the brain for example caused by infection, could give rise to anxiety and unrelated later pain/inflammation, in which case addressing the distress will not change the outcome

 

Yes, exactly. Cross-sectional studies don't predict temporally.