Combining motivational and volitional strategies to promote unsupervised walking in patients with fibromyalgia: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Combining motivational and volitional strategies to promote unsupervised walking in patients with fibromyalgia: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Trials, April 2014

24721143

María-Ángeles Pastor, Sofía López-Roig, Ana Lledó, Cecilia Peñacoba, Lilian Velasco, Inge Schweiger-Gallo, Margarita Cigarán, Carmen Écija, Ramón Limón, Yolanda Sanz

Fibromyalgia patients are often advised to engage in regular low- to moderate-intensity physical exercise. The need of fibromyalgia patients to walk has been stressed in previous research. Behavioral self-regulation theories suggest that a combination of motivational aspects (to develop or strengthen a behavioral intention: Theory of Planned Behavior) and volitional aspects (engagement of intention in behavior: implementation intentions) is more effective than a single intervention. In this paper, we describe a protocol for identifying the motivational processes (using the Theory of Planned Behavior) involved in the practice of walking (phase I) and for studying the efficacy of an intervention that combines motivational and volitional contents to enhance the acquisition and continuation of this exercise behavior (phase II). The paper also shows the characteristics of eligible individuals (women who do not walk) and ineligible populations (women who walk or do not walk because of comorbidity without medical recommendation to walk). Both groups consist of members of any of four patients' associations in Spain who are between 18 and 70 years of age and meet the London Fibromyalgia Epidemiology Study Screening Questionnaire criteria for fibromyalgia. Furthermore, using this study protocol, we will explore the characteristics of participants (eligible women who agreed to participate in the study) and nonparticipants (eligible women who refused to participate).