Abstract

Background: Fibromyalgia, a chronic widespread pain disorder, significantly impacts affected individuals. Medical students face high stress, which may increase their risk for fibromyalgia. Healthcare professionals use tools like the Fibromyalgia Rapid Screening Tool (FiRST) for the diagnosis.
Objectives: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of fibromyalgia among medical students at Taif University and identify potential risk factors.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study using an online FiRST survey, which utilizes a six-symptom threshold for fibromyalgia diagnosis. The survey was completed by 348 medical students from years one to six at Taif University, collecting demographic information in addition to the screening responses.
Results: Out of 348 students, 5 (1.44%) were identified using the FiRST tool as screen-positive for fibromyalgia. Among these 5 individuals, 4 were female and 1 was male, which indicates a female predominance in the identified cases.
Conclusion: This study identified a low prevalence of screen-positive fibromyalgia cases among students at Taif University, with a clear female predominance among the screen-positive participants. The findings highlight the importance of further diagnostic confirmation for screen-positive individuals and underscore the need for larger, multi-center studies to accurately ascertain the burden of fibromyalgia in the broader Saudi Arabian university student population.

Key words: Fibromyalgia, medical students, fibromyalgia rapid screening tool, prevalence, internal medicine, rheumatology.