The effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy on chronic pain experience and pain management in women with fibromyalgia

The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy on chronic pain experience and pain management in women with fibromyalgia. The research method was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design, a control group, and a two-month follow-up. The study's statistical population included all women referred to the pain treatment center of Sina Hospital in Tehran in 2021 who had received a diagnosis of fibromyalgia by a physician. From this population, 36 were selected by available sampling and assigned to two groups (18 people in each group) by lottery. The research instruments were: Van Korf et al. (1992) chronic pain grade questionnaire (CPG) and Nicolanes et al. (2000) pain self-management checklist (PSMC). For the experimental group, 12 sessions of emotion-focused therapy (one session per week for approximately 60 minutes) were performed, but the control group did not receive the intervention. Repeated measurement analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. The results showed that in the experimental group, there was a significant decrease in both post-test and follow-up variables compared to the pre-test (P<0.01), but unlike pain management, the results were not stable for the chronic pain experience variable (P=0.02). The results also showed no significant differences in pre-test, post-test, and follow-up in both variables for the control group (P<0.05). The results showed that fibromyalgia treatment centers and psychotherapists who deal with these patients could use emotion therapy to improve the experience of chronic pain and pain management.