Could a simple questionnaire unmask Fibromyalgia's hidden emotional toll?

Copied word for word from the study's registry entry, so the wording is the study team's rather than ours.

CASES (fibromyalgia) Inclusion Criteria: * Age 18 years or older * Clinical diagnosis of fibromyalgia confirmed according to the 2016 revision of the ACR criteria * Chronic non-cancer pain for at least 3 months * Ability to understand and independently complete self-report questionnaires in Italian * Willingness to provide written informed consent Exclusion Criteria: * Active oncological disease or cancer-related pain * Any current or past psychiatric diagnosis except Major Depressive Disorder and Panic Disorder (assessed by clinical history) * Severe cognitive impairment precluding questionnaire completion * Inability to understand or complete questionnaires in Italian CONTROLS (non-fibromyalgia chronic pain) Inclusion Criteria: * Age 18 years or older * Chronic non-cancer pain for at least 3 months with a defined nociceptive or neuropathic generator (e.g., radiologically or surgically documented degenerative, structural, or post-surgical musculoskeletal pain, or neuropathic pain with an identifiable neurological lesion or disease) * Not meeting the 2016 ACR criteria for fibromyalgia * Ability to understand and independently complete self-report questionnaires in Italian * Willingness to provide written informed consent Exclusion Criteria (parallel to cases): * Diagnosis of fibromyalgia or another recognized nociplastic primary pain condition (e.g., primary chronic widespread pain) * Active oncological disease or cancer-related pain * Any current or past psychiatric diagnosis except Major Depressive Disorder and Panic Disorder * Severe cognitive impairment precluding questionnaire completion * Inability to understand or complete questionnaires in Italian Note: ongoing pharmacological treatment for pain or mental health is not an exclusion criterion in either group; Major Depressive Disorder and Panic Disorder are recorded at baseline and used in covariate-adjusted and stratified analyses.