From shame to respect: musculoskeletal pain patients' experience of a rehabilitation programme, a qualitative study.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to describe and analyse how participants with fibromyalgia or chronic, widespread, musculoskeletal pain, 1 year after completion, experienced a rehabilitation programme; and what knowledge and strategies they had gained. DESIGN, METHODS AND SUBJECTS: Semi-structured interviews with 16 female patients were analysed using the grounded theory method of constant comparison. RESULTS: One core category, from shame to respect, and 4 categories, developing body awareness/knowledge, setting limits, changing self-image and negative counterbalancing factors, and hopelessness and frustration over one's employment situation emerged from the data. The core category represents a process where the informants changed emotionally. Three categories were identified as important for starting and maintaining the process, one category affected the process negatively. CONCLUSION: The rehabilitation programme started the process of change, from shame to respect. The informants learned new strategies for handling their pain and other symptoms; they improved their self-image and communication in their social environment.

Effects of a multiprofessional rehabilitation programme for patients with fibromyalgia syndrome.

The present study sought to evaluate the efficacy of a 12-week multidisciplinary rehabilitation programme mainly emphasizing physiotherapy, for patients with either fibromyalgia syndrome or chronic, widespread pain. Forty-three non-randomized female patients with fibromyalgia syndrome or chronic, widespread pain were assigned to the programme or served as waiting-list controls. The outcome was assessed with the Body Awareness Scale-Health, the Multidimensional Pain Inventory, the Quality of Life Scale, the Visual Analogue Scale and a pain drawing. Both groups were reassessed after 3 and 6 months, the treatment group also after 1 year. The treatment group improved in quality of movement and in vegetative disturbances according to the Body Awareness Scale-Health after the programme. At the 3-month and 1-year follow-ups the improvements were partly sustained. The control group showed deterioration after 3 and 6 months in three of the main scales of the Body Awareness Scale-Health. This clinical trial of a rehabilitation programme, proved beneficial for improving quality of movement and reducing the experience of vegetative disturbances.