Session Information
Date: Sunday, November 8, 2015
Title: Fibromyalgia, Soft Tissue Disorders, Regional and Specific Clinical Pain Syndromes Poster I
Session Type: ACR Poster Session A
Session Time: 9:00AM-11:00AM
Background/Purpose: The objective of this study was to evaluate whether weather had an affect on fibromyalgia symptoms as measured by the Revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQR) and the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), which had not been reported previously.
Methods: 67 female patients with fibromyalgia from the Ohio State University Rheumatology clinic were recruited to participate in the study. We received survey results back from 30 patients. Patients were given questionnaires for the FIQR and BPI to fill out every day for 7 consecutive days. Data was collected from February 1, 2015 through February 7, 2015. We recorded daily weather parameters (temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure) during evening time for Columbus Ohio from the National Weather Service website beginning on January 31, 2015 to Feb 8, 2015. After the data was centered to remove the bias effect for each patient, linear correlation between temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure was done using Pearson correlation coefficient. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to correlate each patient trend with the weather parameters. Finally, principal component analysis (PCA) was used to recognize patterns in our data.
Results: No significant effect of weather on fibromyalgia symptoms was found using ANCOVA as measured by FIQR and BPI. PCA showed weak significant correlations between the second and the third principal components with the barometric pressure (0.26) and the humidity (-0.15), respectively. They accounted for only 6.6% and 5%, respectively, of the variability in our dataset which are too low to extract strong conclusions from.
Conclusion: This study investigated whether weather parameters of temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure could affect fibromyalgia symptoms using FIQR and BPI to measure symptoms, which had not been done before. We did not find any statistically significant effect of weather on fibromyalgia symptoms as measured by FIQR and BPI. PCA of the FIQR and BPI showed low correlation with barometric pressure and humidity but they accounted for only 6.6% and 5% of the variability in our dataset, which are too low to extract strong conclusions from.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Kim D, Chan R, Plans M, Hackshaw K. Evaluating Weather’s Effect on Fibromyalgia Patients Using the Revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire and the Brief Pain Inventory [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015; 67 (suppl 10). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/evaluating-weathers-effect-on-fibromyalgia-patients-using-the-revised-fibromyalgia-impact-questionnaire-and-the-brief-pain-inventory/. Accessed .« Back to 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting
ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/evaluating-weathers-effect-on-fibromyalgia-patients-using-the-revised-fibromyalgia-impact-questionnaire-and-the-brief-pain-inventory/