Moderate and severe pain do not impact resilience in women with endometriosis

Objectives Resilience is described as a trait, an outcome, or a process, and allows people to bounce back from adversity. The goal of this study was to assess, if moderate and severe pain intensity may affect resilience in women with endometriosis compared to those experiencing no or low pain intensity.

Materials and methods An online survey was conducted through patient support groups of women with endometriosis. The Brief Resilience Score (BRS) was employed to evaluate resilience. Pain intensity was assessed by the visual analogue pain scale (VAS; VAS=0-44: no or low pain; VAS=45-74: moderate pain; VAS=75-100: severe pain).

Results In this study population, the median BRS score was 2.66 and the score representing the 75^th percentile was 3.33. Univariate analyses were conducted to identify predictors for high (BRS>2.66) and very high (BRS>3.33) resilience. Neither moderate nor severe pain intensity significantly influenced resilience levels (BRS>2.66 and BRS>3.33) in women with endometriosis, when compared to those experiencing no or low pain with respect to various pain symptoms, such as dysmenorrhea, non-cyclic pain, dysuria, dyschezia, dyspareunia, and lower back pain (all p<0.05).

Conclusion High and very high resilience levels were not affected by moderate and severe pain intensity in women with endometriosis. Nevertheless, as resilience can restore a person's equilibrium after adverse chronic or acute life events, we recommend to evaluate resilience in patients with endometriosis on a regular basis: at diagnosis, throughout treatment and follow-up.

Publication History

Article published online:
11 October 2022