Page 78 - JCTR-11-5

Journal of Clinical and
Translational Research Fibromyalgia: Examination across life domains

Figure 1. Power calculation plot

which analyzed 500 women diagnosed with fibromyalgia. fibromyalgia diagnosis.” As shown in Table 4, inferential
In their study, 59.4% of women reported being married, statistics are presented. Significant differences were found
a finding consistent with the sample in the current study. in all evaluated domains. Across all assessed dimensions—
However, unlike the present study, they found a higher leisure, work, self-care, ability to exercise, functionality,
prevalence of women with complete elementary education, and quality of life—there was a significant difference
totaling one-third of their sample (37%), with only 8% between the period “before” and “after” the fibromyalgia
having completed higher education. This discrepancy diagnosis, with p<0.001 in all cases. This indicates that all
in educational attainment might be attributed to observed changes have strong statistical evidence and are
differences in sample size, methodology, and demographic highly unlikely to have occurred by chance. The W-test
characteristics between the studies. value, related to the non-parametric Wilcoxon analysis,
further confirmed the existence of these differences in each
3.2. Fibromyalgia and its impacts domain, especially in conjunction with effect size analysis.
Regarding the severity of pain experienced by participants Indeed, the magnitude of the effect can be considered high
in the last 30 days, the majority (56.47%) reported for all comparisons (point-biserial correlation coefficients
“very severe” pain, while 28.24% classified their pain >0.60). The Hodges-Lehmann estimate indicates the
as “moderately severe.” Approximately 13% considered median change in participants’ evaluations between the
the pain “a little severe,” and only 2.35% reported “not pre- and post-diagnosis periods.
severe at all.” Furthermore, nearly half of the participants Decline in scores across leisure activities, work
(47.62%) reported that pain had a “very great” impact functioning, exercise capacity, and functional capacity
on their lives, and an additional 28.57% considered the indicates a significant deterioration in physical
impact “extremely great.” Another 11.9% felt a “moderate” functioning domains. The consistency across domains
impact, and 10.71% stated that pain had “a little” impact. suggests a systemic rather than domain-specific pattern
Only 1.19% of participants reported no impact from of deterioration, as previously reported. The effect sizes
37
pain on their lives. These findings align with previous in all domains (ranging from 0.60 to 0.70) are particularly
research demonstrating links between pain severity and noteworthy, as they exceeded what is considered
quality of life. In that study, 69.6% of participants rated clinically significant changes in fibromyalgia-related
36
their pain between 8 and 10 on a subjective scale, and the functioning measures. The changes likely indicate
38
Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire score was 82.46 ± 2.9, genuine reductions in participants’ everyday functioning
collectively indicating a poor quality of life associated with abilities, with both clinical and statistical significance.
the symptomatic profile of the sample. The largest effect size was observed for the quality of life
Tables 2 and 3 provide data on the “perceived impact and overall functionality domains, suggesting that overall
of fibromyalgia on different life domains” and “satisfaction life satisfaction is remarkably susceptible to decline in
of individuals on different life domains before and after this population. These findings are in line with previous

Volume 11 Issue 5 (2025) 72 doi: 10.36922/JCTR025290042