Resilience and Family Factors in Fibromyalgia: Associations with Disease Severity and Impact

Abstract

Background: Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain syndrome influenced by biological and psychosocial factors, making resilience and family environment potential determinants of disease outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate psychological resilience and family-related factors in women with fibromyalgia and to examine their association with disease severity and impact.Methods: A cross-sectional case-control study was conducted with 176 women aged 25-45 years; 88 fibromyalgia and 88 healthy controls. Fibromyalgia severity was assessed using the Fibromyalgia Score (FS) and the Revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire Score (FIQRS). Resilience was measured with the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10). Demographic and family-related data, such as number of children, number of siblings, and presence of a severely ill family member, were also collected.Results: Women with fibromyalgia had lower resilience scores than healthy controls (p < 0.001). They grew up in larger families, more often reported having a severely ill family member during childhood, and currently had more children. Within the fibromyalgia group, lower resilience was associated with greater disease severity and impact (FS: ρ = –0.23, p = 0.034; FIQRS: r = –0.36, p < 0.001). In healthy controls, resilience was positively correlated with the number of children, a relationship not observed in fibromyalgia patients.Conclusion: Women with fibromyalgia demonstrated lower psychological resilience and reported a higher number of siblings and children compared to healthy controls. Lower resilience was associated with more severe fibromyalgia symptoms, highlighting resilience as a clinically relevant factor associated with symptom burden and a potentially modifiable target for supportive interventions.