When It Hurts, a Positive Attitude May Help. The Moderating Effect of Positive Affect ... in Women with Fibromyalgia, 2022, Ecjia et al

[Andy]

Full title: When It Hurts, a Positive Attitude May Help. The Moderating Effect of Positive Affect on the Relationship Between Walking, Depression, and Symptoms in Women with Fibromyalgia

Abstract

Background: Increased exercise is a marker of health in fibromyalgia (FM). However, patients frequently avoid physical activity as a way of minimizing the pain they feel. This deprives them of opportunities to obtain positive reinforcement, increasing functional impact.

Aims: This study examines the mediating role of depressive symptoms between walking (as physical exercise), functional impact, and pain, at different levels of positive affect (PA) among women with fibromyalgia.

Design: Cross-sectional correlational study. Settings: Mutual aid associations for fibromyalgia in Spain. Participants: 231 women diagnosed with FM. Methods: Moderate mediation analyses were conducted using PROCESS.

Results: First, a simple mediation model showed that depression mediated the effect of walking on functional impact, but not on pain. Additionally, the moderated mediated model showed that this effect was significant at medium and high levels of PA, but not when levels of PA were low.

Conclusions: Provision of resources focused on positive affect seem to increase the positive effects of walking on functional impact through the reduction of depressive symptoms. Nurses can improve adherence of patients with FM to walking behavior through increasing positive affect.

Open access, https://www.painmanagementnursing.org/article/S1524-9042(22)00125-4/fulltext

 

[Arnie Pye]

I always assume this kind of paper is written by people who have never been in severe pain, and who take it for granted that they would handle it better than people who are actually suffering with it.

 

[Hutan]

I'm really tempted to create a tag called "patronising tosh" and use it to categorise this study.

 

[Amw66]

Again, not a clue.

 

[Adrian]

It has another use of HADS where the questions could relate to disability rather then depression and anxiety. This makes any conclusions they draw using this scale unreliable

 

[Arnie Pye]

I'm really tempted to create a tag called "patronising tosh" and use it to categorise this study.

Please do!

 

[Sid]

Usually these sorts of studies are done by young healthy trainees in psychology.

My fibromyalgia pain is worse than what I experienced after surgeries. I don’t see how exercise is possible in this scenario, let alone desirable.

 

[shak8]

I love how the researchers had to modify their protocol of 60 minutes of walking in 20 minute bouts with short rest periods.

If they had read extensive literature, they would have begun with 20 minutes.

 

[Mithriel]

My daughter was an nurse on an orthopaedic trauma ward. Patients were usually very reluctant to take pain killers but it was explained to them that if they were not in so much pain they could move more easily which would help with healing as well as reducing the problems of immobility - so pain relief, movement, improved health in that order.

Thinking happy thoughts instead of finding something to make fibromyalgia less painful puts all the burden and blame onto the patient.

If they spent more money finding treatments than proving that positive attitudes help we would all be better off.

 

[rvallee]

Seeing this, I think that Hans Eysenck can rest peacefully in his grave, knowing that his papers applying this nonsense onto cancer will probably never be retracted, since they're basically current, this here is the exact same idea applied with the exact same intent.

Again I am baffled at the fact that papers can be published saying this massively overused and debunked idea "may help" and is promising despite literally decades of attempts at manufacturing evidence using the lowest possible standards. This reads like actual voodoo.

Since it clearly cannot meet even the non-existent standards of clinical psychology, psychosomatics seems to completely dispense from having any standards whatsoever. The background is astonishingly weird, as if written by aliens who only have a superficial knowledge of human behavior. There are many cults out there that are far less fanatical about their ideology.

 

[JemPD]

I'm really tempted to create a tag called "patronising tosh" and use it to categorise this study.

i do wish you would

Usually these sorts of studies are done by young healthy trainees in psychology.

My fibromyalgia pain is worse than what I experienced after surgeries. I don’t see how exercise is possible in this scenario, let alone desirable.

but no, surely it doesnt actually hurt that much Sid!? I mean it cant do, I cant feel your pain therefore it cant possibly exist.... surely you are just experiencing some kind of nocebo effect from your strong belief that it hurts. Start smiling more, that'll help.





* disgusted sarcasm

 

[Sean]

and who take it for granted that they would handle it better than people who are actually suffering with it.

This.