Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Feb 18;1(1):e000007.
doi: 10.1136/rmdopen-2014-000007. eCollection 2015.

A prospective study of the 1-year incidence of fibromyalgia after acute whiplash injury

Robert Ferrari  1
Affiliations

A prospective study of the 1-year incidence of fibromyalgia after acute whiplash injury

Robert Ferrari. RMD Open. .

Abstract

Objective: To measure the 1-year incidence of fibromyalgia in a cohort of acute whiplash-injured participants.

Methods: Consecutive acute patients with whiplash were assessed via the 2010 Modified American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria for fibromyalgia at 3 months, 6 months and 1 year postinjury. At each of these follow-up points, participants were also examined for recovery from whiplash injury.

Results: Of an initial 268 participants, data on recovery was available for 264 participants during the 1-year follow-up period. At the 3-month follow-up, 62% (167/268) of participants reported recovery from their whiplash injuries. At 6 months, 76% (203/268) reported recovery, and at 1 year 82% (216/264) reported recovery. At 3 and 6 months follow-up none of the participants met the 2010 Modified ACR Criteria for fibromyalgia, but fibromyalgia criteria were met for 2 (of 264) seen at the 1-year follow-up, yielding a 1-year incidence of 0.8% (95% CI 0.1% to 3.0%).

Conclusions: In the primary care setting, a significant proportion of patients with whiplash recover from whiplash injury at 1 year, and the incidence of fibromyalgia after acute whiplash injury is very low. The impression that fibromyalgia is common after whiplash injury may be due to the failure to exclude precollision fibromyalgia cases or due to referral bias of non-recovered patients.

Keywords: Fibromyalgis/Pain Syndromes; Low Back Pain; Outcomes research.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Ferrari R. Predicting central sensitization—whiplash patients. Aust Fam Physician 2010;39:863–6. - PubMed
    1. Ferrari R, Louw D. Coping style as a predictor of compliance with referral to active rehabilitation in whiplash patients. Clin Rheumatol 2011;30:1221–5. - PubMed
    1. Ferrari R. Correlation between self-reported recovery and central sensitization in whiplash patients. J Sport Health Sci 2012;1:61–4.
    1. Ferrari R, Louw D. Effect of a pain diary use on recovery from acute whiplash injury, a cohort study. J Zhejiang Univ-Sc B 2013;14:1049–53. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ferrari R. Predicting recovery from whiplash injury in the primary care setting. Aust Fam Physician 2014;43:559–62. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources