Living with Fibromyalgia: A Phenomenological Study of Pain, Fatigue, and Coping
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This phenomenological study aims to explore the lived experiences of individuals diagnosed with fibromyalgia (FM), focusing on their experiences of pain, fatigue, and the coping mechanisms they employ to manage these symptoms. Employing a qualitative phenomenological approach, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 25 participants who have been diagnosed with FM. Participants were recruited from various fibromyalgia support groups and clinics, ensuring a diverse representation in terms of age, gender, and duration of diagnosis. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic analysis to achieve theoretical saturation. Three main themes were identified from the interviews: Pain, Fatigue, and Coping Mechanisms. Under the Pain theme, categories included the nature and characteristics of pain, its impact on physical function, and pain management strategies. The Fatigue theme comprised chronic exhaustion, cognitive fatigue, and its impact on daily activities. For Coping Mechanisms, emotional strategies, physical coping tactics, and social support were highlighted as key categories. These themes underscore the complex interplay between the physical symptoms of FM and the psychological and social strategies employed by individuals to manage their condition. The study highlights the pervasive and multifaceted nature of pain and fatigue in fibromyalgia, significantly impacting individuals' daily lives and functional abilities. It also reveals the importance of effective coping strategies, both adaptive and maladaptive, in managing these symptoms. These findings emphasize the need for a holistic and personalized approach to the management and support of individuals living with FM, incorporating both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".