The Impact of Standard Care Versus Intrinsic Relaxation at Home on Physiological Parameters in Patients with Fibromyalgia: A Comparative Cohort Study from Romania.

Background and

Objectives

Fibromyalgia (FM), through the presence of widespread chronic pain, stiffens the musculoskeletal system and causes sleep disturbances and fatigue. Through this study, we aimed to compare the effectiveness of two different recovery interventions for improving sleep quality: a standard, multidisciplinary intervention in a recovery hospital versus a therapy focused on intrinsic relaxation at home. Materials and

Methods

This study included 60 adult patients who participated voluntarily and were diagnosed with FM by a rheumatologist, randomly divided into two groups. During this study, 30 patients out of the 60 were randomly assigned to experimental group 1 and underwent treatment at the Recovery Clinical Hospital in Băile Felix. The other 30 patients were assigned to experimental group 2 and underwent treatment at home. They were assessed on the first and last day of the recovery program using the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).

Results

In experimental group 1, where by patients underwent hospital recovery (EG1), the results show that the severity of fatigue (FSS) was significantly reduced, with p = 0.00 and an effect size of 0.77, which suggests a general improvement in the state of fatigue, as well as in the quality of sleep evaluated with the PSQI (p = 0.00, effect size = 0.55). In experimental group 2 (EG2), no change was observed between assessments in terms of the FSS, but in terms of the quality of sleep, there was a small decrease in the PSQI score (p = 0.083), with a small effect size of 0.09.

Conclusions

The results show that, from a clinical point of view, a complex treatment carried out daily improves sleep quality and reduces fatigue.