[Relation between pain experience and psychological markers in patients with fibrositis syndrome and patients with rheumatoid arthritis].

We attempted to ascertain to what degree pain experience in two groups of rheumatic patients is influenced by personality traits and psychosocial characteristics. 20 patients with fibrositis syndrome and 20 patients with rheumatoid arthritis completed the Freiburger Personality Inventory, the Giessen Test and the Revised Multidimensional Pain Scale. There was no difference in mean scores of the three questionnaires between the groups but patients with fibrositis syndrome tend to characterize themselves as being psycho-somatically disturbed. The number of significant correlations between pain scales and the personality scales is distinctly smaller in the fibrositis group than in the arthritis group. This result is interpreted as an indication for alexithymia in the fibrositis group.