About the Authors

Lisa R. Jewett

Affiliations Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Marie Hudson

Affiliations Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Division of Rheumatology, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Vanessa L. Malcarne

Affiliation Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, United States of America

Murray Baron

Affiliations Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Division of Rheumatology, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Brett D. Thombs

brett.thombs@mcgill.ca

Affiliations Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada, School of Nursing, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Division of Rheumatology, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Department of Psychiatry, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Canadian Scleroderma Research Group

Membership of the Canadian Scleroderma Research Group is provided in the Acknowledgments.

Competing Interests

MB is the director of the Canadian Scleroderma Research Group, which received educational grants from Actelion Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer Inc. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: BT LJ MH MB. Performed the experiments: BT LJ. Analyzed the data: BT LJ VM MH. Wrote the paper: LJ BT. Interpretation of data: BT LJ MB MH VM. Revision and editing of manuscript: LJ BT MH VM MB. Final approval of the version to be published: LJ BT MH VM MB.