Daytime Napping Associated With Increased Symptom Severity in Fibromyalgia Syndrome

Date
2015
Authors
Theadom, A
Cropley, M
Kantermann, T
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BioMed Central Ltd.
Abstract

Background: Previous qualitative research has revealed that people with fibromyalgia use daytime napping as a coping strategy for managing symptoms against clinical advice. Yet there is no evidence to suggest whether daytime napping is beneficial or detrimental for people with fibromyalgia. The purpose of this study was to explore how people use daytime naps and to determine the links between daytime napping and symptom severity in fibromyalgia syndrome. Methods: A community based sample of 1044 adults who had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia syndrome by a clinician completed an online questionnaire. Associations between napping behavior, sleep quality and fibromyalgia symptoms were explored using Spearman correlations, with possible predictors of napping behaviour entered into a logistic regression model. Differences between participants who napped on a daily basis and those who napped less regularly, as well as nap duration were explored. Results: Daytime napping was significantly associated with increased pain, depression, anxiety, fatigue, memory difficulties and sleep problems. Sleep problems and fatigue explained the greatest amount of variance in napping behaviour, p < 0.010. Those who engaged in daytime naps for >30 minutes had higher memory difficulties (t = -3.45) and levels of depression (t = -2.50) than those who napped for shorter periods (<30mins) (p < 0.010). Conclusions: Frequent use and longer duration of daytime napping was linked with greater symptom severity in people with fibromyalgia. Given the common use of daytime napping in people with fibromyalgia evidence based guidelines on the use of daytime napping in people with chronic pain are urgently needed.

Description
Keywords
Daytime napping; Fibromyalgia syndrome; Sleep; Memory; Pain; Fatigue
Source
BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. 2015, 16:13. DOI: 10.1186/s12891-015-0464-y
Rights statement
© 2015 Theadom et al.; licensee BioMed Central. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.