The Influence of Emotional and Cognitive Factors on Limb Laterality Discrimination in Women with Fibromyalgia Syndrome: A Cross-Sectional Study Secondary Analysis

Abstract

Previous scientific evidence has shown that patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) have alterations in the body schema. There have also been findings regarding the influence of psychological factors on pain, as well as evidence that patients with FMS have difficulty performing laterality discrimination tasks. The main objective of this study was to evaluate whether emotional and cognitive factors influence the limb laterality discrimination task in women with FMS. Seventeen of the participants were healthy female controls, and the other seventeen were women diagnosed with FMS. The main outcome measures were laterality discrimination, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, pain catastrophizing, and fear-related movement. The main analysis showed that patients with FMS had longer reaction times for laterality discrimination in hands (hand 20 images, p < 0.031; hands 50 images p < 0.013). In the secondary analysis, FMS patients showed emotional (anxiety (p < 0.0001); depression (p < 0.0001)) and cognitive (pain catastrophizing (p < 0.0001); fear-related movement (p < 0.0001)) disorders compared with healthy subjects. There was no correlation between limb laterality discrimination and psychological variables. In conclusion, patients with FMS showed impaired laterality discrimination, but psychological variables were not influenced. This could be due to the implicit nature of the task.