Abstract
Research background. The causes of fibromyalgia (FM) are unclear and diagnosing FM is complicated, which limits treatment options, and no treatment to date has proven fully effective in alleviating its symptoms. In current studies, where art therapy has been applied in the case of FM, art therapy has been part of a multidisciplinary intervention. The authors were unable to find any published data on the effects of art therapy on FM. The aim of the research was to determine the effect of group art therapy on pain, emotional state, and feeling of health and comfort of FM patients. Research methods. Intervention included ten structured art therapy sessions. The participants were 20 women between the ages of 39–64 years. In order to assess the results of therapy, a self-rate questionnaire was used. Therapy session changes were registered using pain and fatigue NRS and semantic differential scales of feeling of health and comfort. The outcome of group art therapy was assessed with a pain and fatigue NRS, and an Emotional State Questionnaire (EST-Q2). An open question was used to study the expectations of participants at the beginning of therapy and the main result of the therapy upon its conclusion. Research results. During the group art therapy session, pain and fatigue decreased and the feeling of health and comfort improved. This was confirmed by the content analysis of open questions. Following therapy, a significant decrease had taken place in the subscales of the Emotional State Questionnaire in depression, anxiety, and agoraphobia-panic; a substantial decrease in pain and fatigue took place in patients with heightened baseline measures. Conclusion. The changes following the therapy session confirm the results of earlier studies on the positive effects of psychotherapy and art therapy sessions on pain. The pilot study provided promising results for the application of structured short-term group art therapy with FM patients. Keywords: group art therapy, fibromyalgia, pain, fatigue, emotional state.Keywords: group art therapy, fbromyalgia, pain, fatigue, emotional state.
Highlights
The prevalence of Fibromyalgia (FM) in the general population of various countries has been estimated at between 0.5 and 5%, and it is more common among women (White, Harth, 2001)
The outcome of group art therapy was assessed with a pain and fatigue Numerical Rating Scales (NRS), and an Emotional State Questionnaire (EST-Q2)
The changes following the therapy session confirm the results of earlier studies on the positive effects of psychotherapy and art therapy sessions on pain
Summary
The prevalence of Fibromyalgia (FM) in the general population of various countries has been estimated at between 0.5 and 5%, and it is more common among women (White, Harth, 2001). A recent study (Heidari et al, 2017) showed that the prevalence of FM among the general population is considerably lower than that of populations with specific disorders, e.g. in patients referred to rheumatology clinics and among patients with irritable bowel syndrome, haemodialysis and type 2 diabetes mellitus. FM is characterized by chronic and widespread pain. The current principles in the diagnostic criteria of fibromyalgia have moved from a pain-focused to a Structured Short-Term Group Art Therapy in Patients with Fibromyalgia. A recent largescale study (Dean et al, 2017) investigated whether associations between pain and the additional symptoms associated with FM are different in persons with chronic widespread pain compared to multi-site pain, including or excluding joint areas. The finding supports considering both widespread and multi-site pain when classifying FM. FM can be viewed as a failed attempt of our main complex adaptive system to adapt to a hostile environment (Martinez-Lavin, 2012)
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