Date of Conferral

6-21-2024

Date of Award

June 2024

Degree

Doctor of Public Health (DrPH)

School

Public Health

Advisor

Sri Banerjee

Abstract

Depression and fibromyalgia can often exacerbate each other and are known to be bidirectional disorders. Chronic pain from fibromyalgia often leads to depression, and depression can cause pain to become worse and affect the nervous system, causing pain. The purpose of this quantitative, binary logistic regression study is to determine if there is an association between mental health and fibromyalgia in African Americans while controlling for cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, arthritis, education level (ie. Some high school, high school graduate, some college or higher), diet, poverty-income-ratio, PIR, diabetes, gender, and age. The socio-ecological model included in this cross-sectional study implemented a secondary data set from 2011 - 2018 maintained by the National Health Interview Survey. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression tests were used to analyze the data. The findings of this study revealed that the association of depression with was not statistically significant (OR =1.82 95%, CI [.64 – 5.18], p = .26). The association between depression with medication concurrently with fibromyalgia was not statistically significant (OR .77; 95%CI [.54 – 1.65] p = .38). The association of depression with medication concurrently with fibromyalgia were not statistically significant (OR1.34, 95%CI [.42 – 4.28] p= .63). The finding requires further investigation and consideration of factors such as low numbers of African Americans enrolled in national studies possibly affecting the outcome. Considering social determinants of health is an opportunity for positive social change and the ability to evaluate the association between mental health and fibromyalgia in African Americans.

Download

Share

 
COinS