Sleep disturbance in fibromyalgia syndrome

Sleep disturbance is a widely reported and debilitating concomitant of fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) and plays a pivotal role in exacerbating patients’ reporting of symptoms. Bigatti and colleagues report a longitudinal study that examined self-reported sleep, pain, depression and physical functioning in FMS patients at baseline and again at a 12-month follow-up. Their results support previous research in showing that there is a bidirectional correlation between sleep and pain experience. Moreover, the results demonstrated that sleep predicted pain, pain predicted physical functioning, and physical functioning predicted depression, although causality was not actually demonstrated. Nonetheless, this research highlights the prevalence of sleep problems in FMS, and the critical role sleep plays in the quality of life for many patients