Individualized cognitive-behavioral therapy added to routine treatment produced statistically significant improvements in anxiety, depression, sleep quality, hopelessness, and disease severity in fibromyalgia syndrome patients, while routine treatment alone showed no significant changes on any scale.
Individualized CBT significantly reduced anxiety scores in fibromyalgia patients compared to routine treatment alone.
Individualized CBT significantly reduced disease impact scores as measured by the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire.
Individualized CBT significantly reduced hopelessness scores in fibromyalgia patients.
Individualized CBT produced statistically significant improvements in depression and sleep quality in fibromyalgia patients.
The study randomized 70 fibromyalgia patients but experienced notable dropout, with 57 completing the trial.
The CBT intervention was individualized, delivered by a psychologist over 10 weeks, and administered in addition to routine treatment.
This research suggests that adding individualized talk therapy (specifically cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT) to standard medical treatment can meaningfully help people with fibromyalgia syndrome manage several aspects of their condition. In this study, 70 patients were randomly assigned to receive either their usual treatment alone or usual treatment plus a 10-week personalized CBT program delivered by a psychologist. After the program ended, patients who received CBT showed significant improvements in anxiety, depression, hopelessness, sleep quality, and the overall impact of fibromyalgia on their daily lives. Patients who only received standard treatment showed no meaningful improvement in any of these areas. The improvements were measured using standardized questionnaires. For example, anxiety scores dropped from a median of 13 to 10, disease impact scores dropped from 71.80 to 51.52, and hopelessness scores dropped from 7 to 4 — all statistically significant changes. This is notable because fibromyalgia is a complex chronic pain condition that does not respond fully to medication alone, and the psychological and emotional burden it places on patients is substantial. One important limitation of this study is that more patients dropped out of the CBT group (12 out of 35) than the control group (1 out of 35), which could affect how generalizable the results are. Despite this, the authors concluded that individualized CBT protocols should be encouraged as part of routine clinical care for fibromyalgia, suggesting that psychological treatment tailored to the individual patient may be a valuable addition to existing fibromyalgia management strategies.
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Upload Your LabsKocyigit B, Öztürk G, Sönmez M, Yerkebayeva S, Assylbek M. (2026). Individualized cognitive-behavioral therapy improves anxiety, depression, sleep quality, hopelessness, and disease severity in fibromyalgia syndrome: a single-blind randomized controlled trial.. Rheumatology international. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-026-06146-9