The following is a summary of “Geographical disparities in fibromyalgia severity: An Italian study,” published in the September 2024 issue of Pain by Carlo et al.

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to investigate the presence of differences in disease severity in Italian patients with fibromyalgia from different macro-regions.

They examined patients from the Italian Fibromyalgia Registry, in which 3 geographical macro-regions were identified, comprising patients from Northern Italy, Central Italy, and Southern Italy. Clinical differences (evaluated through the PolySymptomatic Distress Scale [PSD], revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire [FIQR], and modified Fibromyalgia Assessment Status [FASmod]) among the geographical macro-regions were studied using 1-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Scheffé’s test.

The results showed that 6,095 patients (5,719 females and 376 males) were included, with 1,957 from Northern Italy, 2,979 from Central Italy, and 1,159 from Southern Italy. All clinical indices revealed a trend of greater disease severity in Southern Italy, followed by Northern Italy and Central Italy (mean values for PSD: 19.97 ± 6.20 in Northern Italy, 18.61 ± 7.12 in Central Italy, 23.01 ± 5.66 in Southern Italy). These differences were statistically significant for the overall scores of all studied indices, evaluated with ANOVA (all P<0.001), and in the head-to-head comparisons, evaluated with Scheffé’s test.

They concluded geographic background is significantly associated with variations in Italian patients with severe fibromyalgia.

Source: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejp.4735