Background: Causal attributions of bodily perceptions indicate the possibility of some degree of control over events. Therefore, attributions are important to support the social significance of experience and confer meaning.
Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate whether non-patients with fibromyalgia (FMS) use more normalizing attributions than healthy control subjects and help-seeking patients.
Method: Thirty-seven FMS patients attending tertiary care were compared with 38 non-patients and 34 healthy controls on mean anxiety, depression, attribution style, and alexithymia scores.
Results: Mean normalizing scores were greatest in the non-patient group, followed by the healthy-control group, and smallest in the tertiary-care attending group. Non-patients are using more normalizing explanations than the FMS patients and the healthy-control subjects.
Conclusion: Thus, normalization may negatively influence help-seeking behavior and contribute to non-help-seeking behavior.