Background and Objectives Patients with fibromyalgia often feel disable in daily function and admit a great impact in quality of life due to their health condition. The recommendations of an exercise program are important, because individuals with FM are often inactive and physically deconditioned, they fear that exercise exacerbates symptoms. The exercise programs for individuals with fibromyalgia have poor adhesion primarily by the need for equipment, facilities and travel, and the presence of depressive symptoms. All these factors are relevant and take into account when designing the home-based exercise program. The objective of this study was investigate the effect of a home-based exercise program in disability caused by neck pain in patients with fibromyalgia.

Materials and Methods Randomised controlled study, with 18 volunteers randomly divided into 2 groups. An exercise program was applied in individuals with fibromyalgia diagnosis, for a 12 weeks period and 3 times per week. This includes stretching exercises, neck and lumbar-pelvic mobility, lumbar-pelvic stabilization and relaxation. The evaluation was conducted in two stages, and for that we used the Portuguese versions of the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) and the Neck Disability Index (NDI). For the statistical analysis used descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests. The software was IBM SPSS.

Results There were more participants (55.6%) diminishing the score of NDI, specially in the exercise group (p = 0.676), and in both groups in FIQ (p = 1.000), compared with those with tendency to increase or maintain the score. The domain “Intensity of Pain” of the NDI, in the exercise group, was the domain with a higher number of participants demonstrating a tendency to diminishing the score (p = 0.609).

Conclusions After 12 week intervention of a home-based program, there were no improvements in individuals with FM, however, it seems that the home-based exercise program could be efficient in diminishing the disability caused by neck pain.