A feminist, biopsychosocial subjective well-being framework for women with fibromyalgia

To explore the biopsychosocial predictors of subjective well-being (SWB) in women with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) through a framework informed by feminist disability theory.

Two hundred twenty-nine women with FMS completed an online survey measuring FMS severity, physician-patient working alliance, meaningful role-functioning, illness centrality, and SWB. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the relationships among the constructs and their statistical contributions to SWB. Several open-ended prompts were used to inform the quantitative results.

The results indicated a good fit between the data and the respecified model. All variables significantly contributed to the overall model. FMS severity, meaningful role-functioning, and illness centrality accounted for 79% of the variance in SWB, with the indirect effect of physician-patient working alliance.

The present study provided strong support for a biopsychosocial framework encompassing the medical environment, FMS severity, illness centrality, and meaningful role-functioning to predict SWB in women with FMS. As a feminist framework, the primary research model needs further refinement but still has significant implications for conceptualization, treatment, and future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).