섬유근통 증후군의 정신과적 접근

Abstract

Fibromyalgia is a disease that occurs frequently. However, people do not know much about this disease and many doctors find it difficult to diagnose such patients. Symptoms of fibromyalgia may not only include pain, but also sleep disorder, fatigue, melancholia, and other mood disorders. Pain is one of the major symptoms of many diseases and may greatly impede the quality and functionof an individual`s life. Yet many clinicians have trouble treating chronic pain in part because they focus on the pain itself, which is merely one of the causes, and not on the evaluation and treatment of problems incidental to pain. It is noted that pain may be accompanied by not only physical suffering, but also emotional problems, such as melancholia and other secondary problems. The causes for fibromyalgia syndrome have not yet been clearly revealed but it is known that mental factors contribute to the occurrence and progress of the symptoms, and that the evaluation of or therapeutic interventions for the mental causes may be due to physical effects. Therefore, based on adequate psychiatric knowledge, clinicians should understand and treat the patients accordingly. It may be that more effective medical services are needed through intensive treatments in multidisciplinary teams for the patients. This article is aimed at investigating the psychological issues that fibromyalgia patients encounter. It also considers the psychiatric drugs and psychosocial treatment that are applied to the disease.