OBJECTIVE: to determine the prevalence of depression and quality of life in patients with Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FS), as well as the relationship between both of them. METHODS: Seventy patients with FS were selected in two public and six private rheumatology clinics in the city of Florianópolis, Brazil. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) was used to screen depression, and another questionnaire, the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), was used to measure quality of life. Analysis of variance and multivariate regression was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: Nearly two thirds of the patients with FS had some degree of depression: 32.9%, 21.4% and 12.9% of them had mild, moderate and severe depression, respectively. Depression was associated with lower scores on the following scales of quality of life: physical conditioning, physical functioning, pain, social functioning, mental health, emotion functioning and general health perception. Pain control, social functioning, vitality and general health perception improved with age. CONCLUSIONS: Depression was shown to be highly prevalent and to have a significant adverse effect on various aspects of quality of life among the patients with FS. It may also increase the sensation of pain, physical incapacity and social inadequacy due to the illness, thus making the treatment more difficult.
fibromyalgia; depression; quality of life
