Impact of cognitive behavioral therapy on attention in patients with fibromyalgia: a randomized controlled trial

More than three-fourths of people with fibromyalgia complain of cognitive difficulties, including memory and attention problems, which result in impaired job performance and disability. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is efficacious in treating people with attention deficits, depression, anxiety, and chronic pain (eg, fibromyalgia).

In this study, we examined the efficacy of CBT for improving attention in patients with fibromyalgia.

Sixty-nine women with fibromyalgia (M = 42; SD = 13) were randomly assigned to receive CBT or an education control, and completed computer-based attention tasks and surveys at baseline (before receiving treatment) and at the follow-up (after receiving 8 treatment sessions). We hypothesized that CBT would lead to greater improvement in attention compared with fibromyalgia education. We conducted repeated-measures analyses of variance to examine the effects of time (pre- vs postintervention) and whether CBT resulted in greater improvement (time × condition effects) for attention span, attentional switching, and divided attention.

Results indicated an effect of time such that patients in both groups improved from baseline to follow-up for attention span (F = 8.26, P = 0.01) and switch cost response time (F = 4.45, P = 0.04). However, the time by condition interaction was not significant (Ps > 0.05), indicating that improvement in attentional performance did not differ across intervention groups.

Our results support the possibility of practice effects such that completing tasks that engage attentional processes could serve as potential interventions for attentional deficits observed in fibromyalgia.