The Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) Calculator is a clinical tool designed to assess the severity and impact of fibromyalgia on a patient’s daily life. Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, and cognitive difficulties, often referred to as “fibro fog.” The FIQ is one of the most widely used and validated questionnaires for evaluating the health status and quality of life in individuals with fibromyalgia. The FIQ Calculator aids healthcare providers in quantifying the burden of symptoms, monitoring disease progression, and evaluating treatment efficacy.
What is Fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is a complex, chronic pain syndrome affecting approximately 2-4% of the population, predominantly women. It is characterized by widespread pain, tenderness, and a host of associated symptoms such as fatigue, sleep disturbances, mood disorders, and cognitive difficulties. The condition can significantly impair a person’s physical functioning and quality of life, leading to challenges in daily activities, work, and social interactions. The exact cause of fibromyalgia remains unclear, but it is thought to involve a combination of genetic, environmental, and psychological factors that affect how the brain processes pain signals.
How the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) Works
The FIQ is a self-administered questionnaire originally developed in 1991 to measure the health status of women with fibromyalgia. It has since been validated for broader use. The FIQ consists of 21 questions that cover various dimensions of health, including physical functioning, work status, depression, anxiety, sleep quality, pain, stiffness, fatigue, and well-being. The questions are designed to capture the impact of fibromyalgia on the patient’s ability to perform daily activities and overall quality of life.
The FIQ Calculator takes the patient’s responses to these 21 questions and assigns a numerical score to each response. These scores are then aggregated to provide an overall impact score, ranging from 0 to 100, where higher scores indicate greater impact and severity of fibromyalgia symptoms.
The FIQ is divided into three main sections:
- Physical Functioning: Assesses the patient’s ability to perform daily activities such as dressing, shopping, cleaning, and preparing meals. These items are scored based on difficulty and limitations experienced by the patient.
- Overall Impact: Includes questions that assess the number of days in the past week that the patient felt well and how many days they were unable to work or perform daily activities due to fibromyalgia.
- Symptoms: Covers eight common symptoms associated with fibromyalgia, including pain, fatigue, stiffness, anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances. Patients rate the severity of each symptom on a visual analog scale or a numeric scale.
How the FIQ Calculator is Used
The FIQ Calculator is a practical tool that helps healthcare providers assess the severity of fibromyalgia in a structured and standardized way. Here’s how the calculator works:
Patients are asked to complete the FIQ by answering questions about their physical abilities, symptoms, and overall health status over the past week. The calculator then scores each response according to the predefined scoring system.
The scores for each section are added together to give a total FIQ score. This score is used to quantify the overall impact of fibromyalgia on the patient’s daily life and functioning.
Results from the calculator are interpreted to determine the severity of fibromyalgia. A score closer to 0 indicates minimal impact, while a score closer to 100 indicates severe impact.
Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) Calculator
Please enter your responses to the following questions based on your experiences over the past week.
