Table 1.

American College of Rheumatology criteria for fibromyalgia.

Criteria: A patient satisfies diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia if the following three conditions are met: - Widespread pain index (WPI) ⩾ 7 and symptom severity (SS) scale score) ⩾ 5 or WPI 3–6 and SS scale score ⩾ 9 - Symptoms present at a similar level for ⩾3 months - Patient does not have a disorder that would otherwise explain the pain

WPI, in how many areas has the patient had pain in the last week (score between 0 and 19): - Shoulder girdle (left), shoulder girdle (right), upper arm (left), upper arm (right), lower arm (left), lower arm (right), hip (buttock, trochanter, left), hip (buttock, trochanter, right), upper leg (left), upper leg (right), lower leg (left), lower leg (right), jaw (left), jaw (right), chest, abdomen, upper back, lower back and neck

SS scale score: - Three symptoms – fatigue, waking unrefreshed and cognitive symptoms. - For each of the three symptoms, level of severity using the following scale – 0 = no problem; 1 = slight or mild problems, generally mild or intermittent; 2 = moderate, considerable problems, often present and/or at a moderate level; 3 = severe, pervasive, continuous, life-disturbing problems. - Considering somatic symptoms in general, indicate whether the patient has 0 = no symptoms, 1 = few symptoms, 2 = a moderate number of symptoms, 3 = a great deal of symptoms. - The SS score is the sum of the severity of the three symptoms plus the extent of somatic symptoms. The final score is between 0 and 12.

Source: Reproduced from Wolfe et al.,⁴ with permission.