Fibromyalgia Syndrome: The Relationship between Alexithymia and Attachment Style on Couple Relationship

The fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is the most frequent cause of chronic, widespread pain in North America and Europe. It is a non-inflammatory musculoskeletal syndrome predominantly found in the female middle-aged population with a ratio men/women of . Considered for decades an ‘imaginary ’ or at best a psychosomatic disease, fibromyalgia gained its status as a diagnosable entity in the early 90s giving a ‘voice ’ to the invisible suffering of people, the majority of them being women afflicted by it. While in general the research on psychosocial aspects of fibromyalgia is scarce, couple and family aspects are even less studied than individual aspects. In an attempt to shed more light on the quality of couple relationship of people suffering from FMS, this study looked at the mediation effect of alexithymia and attachment style on the relationship between the impact of fibromyalgia and couple satisfaction. This is a quantitative study that employed a Structural Equation Modeling statistical analysis. The findings from this study show that neither alexithymia nor a specific attachment style is a mediator of the relationship between fibromyalgia impact and couple satisfaction. Th