Impact of Childhood Trauma on Levels of Depressive Symptoms, Pain, Functionality, and Cognitive Conflicts in Fibromyalgia

Programa de Doctorat en Cervell, Cognició i Conducta ; [eng] In recent years, much scientific evidence has shown the role of child maltreatment in human development, which impacts all aspects of growth, physical, behavioral, emotional, and cognitive. Depending on the extent of the maltreatment, it may lead to childhood trauma and generate a vulnerability to mental and physical health. The extent of the maltreatment encompasses its frequency and duration, the age in which it occurred, and the type of maltreatment, whether one isolated type or several types of maltreatment. When more than one type of maltreatment is present, it produces a cumulative effect that can be potentially more damaging than a single type of maltreatment. Although little is known to date, many studies focus on uncovering the role and influence of childhood trauma in chronic pain. Moreover, even less is known about the role of specific types of maltreatment experienced in childhood or the cumulative effect of multiple maltreatment types on the treatment outcome of patients with chronic pain. This research investigated the impact of single types of childhood trauma and the cumulative effect of more than one type of maltreatment on reported levels of depressive symptoms, pain, functionality, and indexes of cognitive conflict before and after psychological treatment for participants with Fibromyalgia (FM) and depressive symptoms. The research was divided into two studies, Study 1 was a cross-sectional analysis, and Study 2 included pre and posttreatment data analysis. For these two studies, 104 women with FM and depressive symptoms responded to the childhood trauma questionnaire at baseline assessment. In Study 1, our sample was assessed for single and cumulative types of maltreatment using a cutoff indicative of traumatic levels and compared with similar samples from other studies. In addition, childhood trauma scores were compared with scores of depressive symptoms, pain, functionality, and cognitive conflicts at pretreatment (baseline). ...