COMT moderates the relation of daily maladaptive coping and pain in fibromyalgia

Forty-five women with fibromyalgia (FM) engaged in a 30-day electronic diary assessment, recording daily ratings of pain and 2 forms of maladaptive coping: pain catastrophizing and pain attention. Participants were genotyped for the val ¹⁵⁸met single nucleotide polymorphism (rs4680) in the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene. COMT genotype moderated the daily relations of both maladaptive coping processes and pain. FM women with the homozygous met/met genotype evidenced more pain on days when pain catastrophizing was elevated relative to heterozygous and homozygous val ¹⁵⁸ carriers. FM women with the homozygous met/met genotype evidenced more pain on days when pain attention was elevated relative to those with the homozygous val/val genotype. Evidence is presented to suggest that these are independent effects. The findings provide multimeasure and multimethod support for genetic moderation of a maladaptive coping and pain process, which has been previously characterized in a sample of postoperative shoulder pain patients. Further, the findings advance our understanding of the role of COMT in FM, suggesting that genetic variation in the val ¹⁵⁸met polymorphism may affect FM pain through pathways of pain-related cognition. This study examined 2 forms of maladaptive coping: pain catastrophizing and pain attention. The findings provide multimeasure and multimethod support for genetic moderation of a maladaptive coping and pain process and suggest that genetic variation in the val ¹⁵⁸met polymorphism may affect fibromyalgia pain through pathways of pain-related cognition.