THU0466 EARLY DIAGNOSIS IS ASSOCIATED WITH LESS DISEASE SEVERITY AND BETTER OUTCOME IN FIBROMYALGIA SYNDROME: A TRICENTRIC PROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF A COHORT OF 370 PATIENTS

Background: Delayed diagnosis of fibromyalgia (FM) has been reported to be associated with more economic burden, healthcare utilization and worse response to treatment1,2. However, its impact on the patients’ symptomatology and disease severity is still underestimated. Objectives: to evaluate the effect of diagnostic delay (DD) on FM severity and disease assessment parameters. Methods: in this cross sectional study, 370 FM patients were prospectively interviewed. Information about DD, widespread pain index (WPI), symptom severity scale (SSS), total severity scale (SSS+WPI) and number of tender points were collected. We proposed to classify our patients into 3 categories; early diagnosis (ED ≤ 2 years; 83 patients), late diagnosis (LD: >2-7 years; 198) and very late diagnosis (VLD >7 years; 89 patients). Results: the mean age of patients was 33.9 (±9.8) and 79.4 % were female. The mean for DD was 5.6 (±3.6) while the means for SSS, total scale and tender points were 7.8 (±1.6), 16.46 (±4.1), 14.31 (±2.3) respectively. A significant correlation has been found for DD with SSS (r = 0.14), total scale (r = 0.37) and tender points (r = 0.16) but not with WPI (r = 0.059). Comparing the three categories, the mean for SSS was 7.54 (±1.6), 7.73 (±1.4) and 8.25 (±1.7) in the groups of ED, LD and VLD respectively (P =0.008) while the mean for the total scale was 15 (±3.8), 15.95 (±3.8) and 18.96 (±4.4) respectively (P = 0.000) and the mean for tender points was 13.7 (±2.3), 14.35 (±2.1) and 14.77 (±2.8) respectively (P = 0.011). The mean for WPI did not significantly differ as it was 7.45 (±2.8), 7.8 (±3.6) and 7.18 (±4.8) in the groups of ED, LD and VLD respectively (P = 0.415). Conclusion: early diagnosis of FM is associated with low SSS, total severity scale and tender points reflecting a better outcome and a less disease severity. References: [1]Hughes G, Martinez C, Myon E, Taieb C, Wessely S: The impact of a diagnosis of fibromyalgia on health care resource use by primary care patients in the UK: an observational study based on clinical practice.Arthritis Rheum 2006, 54(1):177-83. [2]Choy et al., A patient survey of the impact of fibromyalgia and the journey to diagnosis BMC Health Services Research 2010, 10:102. Disclosure of Interests: : None declared