期刊名称:Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine: An Open Access Journal
电子版ISSN:2164-2850
出版年度:2022
卷号:10
期号:1
页码:160-179
DOI:10.1080/21642850.2022.2033121
语种:English
出版社:Taylor and Francis Ltd
摘要:Fatigue is a common symptom in somatic and mental illness. Musculoskeletal pain and psychological distress have in turn frequently been shown to be associated with fatigue across clinical conditions and in the general population. The study aims to disentangle direct effects from those due to mere confounding from shared etiologies. Design: The study used genetically informative longitudinal twin data, through a co-twin control design with an additional withinperson dimension. Methods: Data on fatigue, pain and distress from 2196 mono – and dizygotic twins from the Norwegian Twin Registry examined at two time points five years apart was analyzed using multilevel generalized linear regression modeling. Fatigue was regressed on pain and distress, with further controls added for confounding from genetic and stable non-shared environmental sources. Results: Pain and distress had a significant impact on fatigue at genetic, stable non-shared environmental and time-varying levels, even when controlling for somatic comorbidity. Conclusion: The findings indicate that a significant proportion of the association between fatigue, pain and distress is due to genetic and environmental confounding. Pain and distress exert significant, albeit smaller effects on fatigue even when controlling for genetic and stable environmental contributions, indicating direct effects. Potential etiological pathways and underlying mechanisms are discussed.