Prehabilitation for Being Active. A Feasibility Study in Fibromyalgia

Twelve people with FM will be recruited from the FM patient support groups. The investigators will develop and test a 4-week prehabilitation educational programme (i.e., a behavioural change intervention) consisting of meeting once per week (each approximately 1 - 1.5 hours). These dynamic and interactive meetings will focus on education and skills training in: exercise, activity cycling, pacing, causes of symptoms in FM (pain, fatigue, sleep dysfunction) and their management. Participants will be taught to set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed goals (SMART principle) that are valuable or meaningful to them. To do so, the participants will identify a 'committed action' plan. The principles of cognitive behavioural therapy will be used to address maladaptive thoughts (e.g., catastrophizing and fear avoidance) and to manage stress (e.g., skills of relaxation). Participants will learn how to use of pedometers to monitor physical activity. After the 4-week prehabilitation educational programme, the participants will be encouraged to engage in a 6-week gentle self-paced walking programme (with weekly telephone support). The 6-week walking programme will consist of a simple pedometer-driven intervention. Furthermore, the research team will telephone each participant at a prearranged time each week to discuss progress, to document mean daily step count and to discuss a new physical activity target (step count) for the subsequent week. Participants will record daily step counts (pedometer-derived) in a walking dairy which will be used as raw data and mean steps per day calculated. Where a participant declines telephone support, an alternative weekly email or text/WhatsApp messages will be offered instead, where the same information will be given and requested. Before (baseline measurements) and right after the completion of the 4-week prehabilitation educational programme as well as the 6-week gentle self-paced walking programme the same measurement