Comparison of fibromyalgia prevalence in medical school and music academy students

Abstract

Objective: Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic condition characterized by generalized pain and presence of tender points. Psychosocial stress is one of the risk factors in the pathogenesis of the syndrome. Recently, musical therapy increasingly takes part in the management of the chronic pain due to its calming and soothing effect. The aim of this study is to determine and compare the FMS frequencies among the medical school students where stress has always been felt due to the long and intensive education period and the students of musical academy where positive effect of music can always been sensed.

Methods: In this descriptive study, 258 students from the medical school and 184 students from the musical academy were enrolled. FMS was diagnosed according to the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 1990 criteria. Data were analyzed with the chisquare test, student t test and the Mann-Whitney U test.

Results: FMS frequencies were 2.3% among the students of medical school and 5.4% among the musical academy students. Difference between the two groups was not significant (p=0.123).

Conclusion: In this study, FMS frequency among the medical school students where the stress factor is higher due to the longer and harder education was not differ from that of the musical academy. On the other hand, further studies investigating the other risk factors of FMS such as socioeconomic level may provide different results.