Turkish journal of physical medicine and rehabilitationAug 28, 2019

How Often Fibromyalgia Occurs and Affects People with Behçet's Disease

Longevity & Aging Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Apr 3, 2026

Abstract

Fibromyalgia prevalence in Behçet's disease is 19.6%, significantly higher than the 3.2% observed in healthy controls.

Patients with Behçet's disease have increased scores for depression and anxiety compared to healthy individuals.
Quality of life measures in Behçet's disease patients, including physical function and emotional role, are significantly decreased.
All patients with fibromyalgia in this study were female, contrasting with a lower female representation in Behçet's disease patients without fibromyalgia.
In patients with fibromyalgia, factors such as older age, longer disease duration, and higher depression scores are associated with worse sleep quality and quality of life.

Simplified

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to investigate the scores of depression, anxiety, sleep and quality of life (QoL), to identify the prevalence of fibromyalgia (FM) in Behçet's disease (BD), and to evaluate whether there is a difference between BD patients with and without FM in these scores.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Between March 2008 and January 2009, 97 patients with BD and 95 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were included in the study. The patients with BD were divided into two groups according to the presence or absence of FM. All participants were evaluated by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 (SF-36).

RESULTS: Compared to the controls, FM prevalence was higher (19.6% vs 3.2%) with increased BDI and BAI scores, while the subscores of SF-36 including physical function, physical role, pain, general health, social function, and emotional role decreased in BD patients (for all p<0.001). All BD patients with FM were females (n=19), while only 46% of BD patients without FM were females (n=36) (p<0.001). In BD patients with FM, compared to female BD patients without FM, the mean age (p=0.017), disease duration (p=0.028), and BDI scores (p=0.017) were significantly higher, while the PSQI scores (p=0.001) and SF-36 subscores, except general health (p=0.114), were significantly lower (for all p<0.05).

CONCLUSION: Our study results suggest that patients with BD have an increased severity of depression and anxiety, higher frequency of FM, and worsened QoL than healthy individuals. In addition, the presence of FM seems to be related with female sex, longer disease duration, older age, depression, sleep disturbance, and poor QoL in BD patients.

Funding

Competing interests

Conflict of Interest: The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

PubMed

How Often Fibromyalgia Occurs and Affects People with Behçet's Disease

Abstract

Funding

Competing interests

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Abstract

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