The public defence will be held as a video conference over Zoom.
The defence will follow regular procedure as far as possible, hence it will be open to the public and the audience can ask ex auditorio questions when invited to do so.
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Due to copyright reasons, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. In order for the faculty to have time to process the order, it must be received by the faculty no later than 2 days prior to the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. Inquiries regarding the thesis after the public defence must be addressed to the candidate.
Digital Trial Lecture – time and place
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Associate Professor Emma Dures, University of the West of England
- Second opponent: Professor Egil Andreas Fors, NTNU
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor II Anners Lerdal, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Mette Brekke, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Associate Professor Heidi A. Zangi, Faculty of Health Studies, VID
Summary
Well-recognized treatment guidelines recommend use of prompt diagnosis, patient information, and nonpharmacological interventions as first-line treatment for patients with fibromyalgia (FM). These recommendations are available only to a limited degree in Norwegian primary healthcare.
Aims of this thesis were to evaluate existing literature of mindfulness- and acceptance-based interventions for patients with FM, and the effects of a multicomponent rehabilitation programme delivered in primary health care.
The methods applied to address these aims were a systematic review with meta-analyses and a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effects of a multicomponent rehabilitation programme combining two nonpharmacological treatment modalities for patients with FM.
Further, in an observational exploratory study, we evaluated polysymptomatic distress scale scores using latent class growth analysis to identify groups of patients with different symptom severity trajectories.
The results from the systematic review and meta-analyses showed that mindfulness- and acceptance-based interventions for FM patients were associated with small to moderate uncertain effects. In the RCT, a multicomponent rehabilitation programme, combining prompt diagnosis and patient education with a mindfulness- and acceptance-based group intervention followed by physical activity, was compared to a control group receiving diagnosis and patient education and treatment as usual. However, adding a mindfulness- and acceptance-based intervention followed by physical activity did not show enhanced benefits over treatment as usual for patients with FM.
In the observational exploratory study, the analysis of FM trajectories identified two groups: a group that improved slightly and a group that did not, but the groups did not differ in baseline characteristics.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.