Introduction: The term scleroderma describes the dermal hardening characteristic of a heterogeneous group of related disorders. Patients with scleroderma often experience elevated symptoms of psychological distress, determined by changes in physical appearance, pain, fatigue sensation, and difficult in daily life occupations. With regard to importance of psychological substructures in cure and treatment of scleroderma, we explored cross-sectionally the roles of two broad motivational systems that are thought to control levels of responsiveness to cues of threat and reward, the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) and the Behavioral Activation System (BAS), in patients with scleroderma and healthy people. In addition, this study examined the role of two distinct factors of emotion, positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) and relationship between BIS and BAS with these affects. Methods: 70 patients attending to an outpatient scleroderma clinic in Rahimi hospital in Khorramabad, and diagnosed as scleroderma cases by a rheumatologist and 70 other healthy subjects with the same age average and similar entry criteria were selected as comparison groups. The two groups completed three questionnaires including socio-demographic variables (gender, age, marriage, education, etc.) and self-report measures assessing PA and NA (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) in addition to BAS/BIS scales. The means of variables in both groups were compared by independent T-test. Results: The activity of BIS in scleroderma patients was significantly higher than healthy the people (P<0.05); while BAS activity in the healthy people was significantly higher than the patients group (P<0.05). Also PA in the patients group was significantly correlated with BAS (P<0.005) and NA in the patients group was significantly correlated with BIS (p<0.001). On the other hand, in the control group PA was significantly correlated with BAS (P<0.001) and BIS (P<0.005), but no significant difference was observed in relationship between NA and BIS in the control group. Conclusion: Fundamental analyzing of neural/behavioral variables and affects in the study of scleroderma disorders is necessary.
