The association between adverse childhood experiences, self-silencing behaviours and symptoms in women with fibromyalgia 2022 Bacon & White

ABSTRACT

Poor adult health has consistently been associated with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The process is not fully understood but is likely to involve a complex interaction of biological and psychosocial factors. Early life stress can affect the developing brain resulting in long-term hyper-responses to stress and raised inflammatory biomarkers. Women with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) frequently report ACEs and also self-sacrificial behaviours whereby they repress their own needs and emotions to preserve personal relationships. This behavioural profile (termed self-silencing) may develop following ACEs but has not previously been considered in the context of FMS.

This study examined whether self-silencing mediates the link between ACEs and FMS symptoms. Women with (N = 539) and without (N = 184) an FMS diagnosis completed measures of Silencing-the-Self, health symptoms and ACEs. Number of ACEs and symptom levels were significantly associated in both groups. One aspect of self-silencing, care and self-sacrifice (putting others needs before your own) mediated the association between ACEs and symptoms in the FMS group only. Externalised self-perception (judging oneself according to perceived external standards) was negatively associated with symptoms but presented no mediating effects. Results present preliminary new information to explain the association between ACEs and FMS. Recognition of the factors which underlie symptomology is important in understanding the condition and supporting patients.

Open access, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13548506.2022.2159459

 

"Silencing-the-self (STS) remains a useful psychological framework for understanding women’s health outcomes (Maji & Dixit, 2019) and has been implicated in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS; Ali et al., 2000) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS; Hambrook et al., 2011), both chronic inflammatory conditions with uncertain aetiology and often co-morbid with FMS."

"We advertised for participants with FMS in online support groups and 540 women responded and self-declared a clinical diagnosis of FMS. One did not complete all the measures and was removed from the dataset, leaving 539 for analysis (Mage = 42.30, SD = 12.64). Two hundred and ninety-one (54%) declared a co-morbid diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS; common co-morbidities which have also been linked to stress), or other chronic condition."

 

Alison Bacon was part of the team that published this, Symptom frequency & development of a generic functional disorder symptom scale suitable for use in studies of patients w/IBS, FM and CFS, 2019, Hyland

 

My understanding is that certain medical professionals associate poor adult health with ACEs and some sufferers may given medicine’s failure to provide them any evidenced understanding of their condition are willing to accept this supposed association. However there is no unambiguous objective evidence to justify an association, never mind a causal relationship in the real world.

There are major problems in using self reported ACEs, reported after the fact in any study, as a concurrent health issue is likely to increase subjects’ likelihood of reporting historic ACEs, especially if they have spent some time trying to find explanations for their currently poorly understood or even wilfully misunderstood health condition. Further it is hard to envisage how useful healthy controls are and that any differences in the two groups are not just artefacts of the experimental design.

Further can we be certain that questionnaires measuring ‘silencing the self’ are independent of the questionnaires measuring the Fibro, or if any identified association is also an artefact of the questionnaire design.

 

But of course it does no such thing. Instead it merely presents the usual vague "associations" and this speculative model, the same circular reasoning as always, and pretends this is "new information".



It's completely revolting that the medical profession actually makes decisions with far greater repercussions than most criminal trials on the basis of a doodle on a napkin. The ethical bankruptcy is off the charts.

Could be partly this. Could be partly that. The entire point of science is to answer those questions, not present speculative answers as good enough.

Pure junk pseudoscience.

 

Is she famous or infamous? I've never heard of her.

 

Not that I'm aware of but I noticed that the study I linked to was referenced in this paper, so highlighted it.

 

And is she telling porky pies?