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Patients who met fibromyalgia criteria unlikely to have received diagnoses
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Patients, particularly men, who satisfied fibromyalgia criteria were unlikely to have been clinically diagnosed with the illness, according to study results.
Researchers used the Rochester Epidemiology Project (REP; 2005-2009) to retrospectively review medical records of patients with fibromyalgia (FM) in Olmsted County, Minn., and to estimate the prevalence of diagnosed FM in clinical practice. They also mailed a survey that included a modification of the 2010 American College of Rheumatology criteria for FM to a random sample of 2,994 adults in the county.
Ann Vincent
In the REP method, 3,410 potential patients were identified using diagnostic codes (for FM, myalgia, myositis or fibromyositis), and 1,115 of those patients had a health care provider-documented FM diagnosis. Adjusting for age and sex, prevalence of diagnosed fibromyalgia by this method was 1.1%. (95% CI, 1.07%-1.20%). Utilizing the mail-survey method, 830 adults (27.6%) responded, 44 (5.3%) met fibromyalgia criteria and disease prevalence was estimated at 6.4% for the general population when adjusted for age and sex.
Among those patients diagnosed via REP, 492 (44%) also responded to the mailed FM research survey, with 370 patients (75%) meeting FM research survey criteria. When compared with patients who met FM criteria by the mail-survey method, patients diagnosed with FM who also met FM survey criteria included significantly fewer men (6% vs. 34%, respectively; P<.001) and, on average, had higher symptom severity scores (mean score, 11.8 vs. 8.6, respectively; P<.001).
“Men who reported symptoms of pain, fatigue, unrefreshing sleep and cognitive difficulties were less likely to receive an FM diagnosis,” researcher Ann Vincent, MD, director of the fibromyalgia clinic at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., told Healio.com.
“Be aware that both men and women could meet the fibromyalgia clinical criteria,” Vincent said. “Recognition of this illness is important as we have pharmacological and nonpharmacological modalities to decrease symptom burden.”
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