Does emotional expressivity moderate pain severity/personality traits and depression/marital satisfaction relations in fibromyalgia patients?

Date

2015

Author

Denizci, Merve

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The objective of this study was to explore whether emotional expressivity moderates pain severity/personality traits and depression/marital satisfaction relations in fibromyalgia patients or not. Biopsychosocial Model was used as the conceptual framework for the study. The sample of the study was composed of 91 fibromyalgia married patients. Eight moderation models were tested using emotional non-expressiveness and alexithymia as moderators, independently. The models included pain severity and neuroticism as independent variables; and depression and marital satisfaction as dependent variables. The findings suggested that when FM patients experience more pain, their depressive symptoms tended to increase. Moreover, depression tended to be higher when FM patients were more likely to have both emotional non-expressiveness and alexithymia. The findings of regression analyses indicated that as the neuroticism characteristics of FM patients increase, their depressive symptoms tend to increase, as well. However, there was no significant association between pain severity and marital satisfaction. There was no significant association between neuroticism and marital satisfaction. Despite of that alexithymia predicted significantly marital satisfaction, emotional non-expressiveness did not. The findings showed that emotional expressivity (emotional non-expressiveness and alexithymia) did not moderate pain severity/personality traits and depression/marital satisfaction relations in fibromyalgia patients. The strengths and limitations, as well as the implications of the findings, were discussed.

Subject Keywords

Pain., Fibromyalgia., Emotions., Pain perception., Marital conflict., Psychology M.S. thesis

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12618442/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/24431

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis