FIBROMYALGIA IN THE ADULT DANISH POPULATION .1. A PREVALENCE STUDY

Epidemiologic studies of fibromyalgia have so far been based on rheuma tologic and general practice settings, which are poor proxies for the underlying population. The study is based on a national health intervi ew survey carried out by the Danish Institute for Clinical Epidemiolog y in 1990/91 on approx. 6000 randomly selected Danish citizens. For th is study 1219 subjects from the eastern part of Denmark aged 18 to 79 years were asked about widespread muscle pain. One-hundred-and-twenty- three persons fulfilled the screening criteria. Clinical examination c ould be performed on 65 persons (53%). Eight subjects, all female, met the 1990 American College of Rheumatism criteria for fibromyalgia. Dr opouts were regarded as not having fibromyalgia. The prevalence of fib romyalgia in the Danish population between 18 and 79 years of age was found to be a minimum estimate of 0.66% (95% confidence limits 0.28%-1 .29%).