Abstract:
STUDY OBJECTIVE: To determine the frequency of the chronic fatigue syndrome among patients with symptoms of fatigue.
DESIGN: Prospective, cohort study.
SETTING: Referral clinic, based in a primary care general internal medicine faculty practice of a university medical center.
PATIENTS: Consecutive sample of 135 patients (53 men, 82 women) with 6 months or more of debilitating fatigue.
INTERVENTIONS: All patients had a complete history taken, had a physical examination and a comprehensive battery of blood tests, and were given the Diagnostic Interview Schedule of the National Institute of Mental Health, a highly-structured 260-item instrument designed to enable accurate psychiatric diagnoses. Other diagnostic studies (for example, sleep studies and electroencephalography) were ordered if necessary for individual patients.
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Six of the one hundred thirty-five patients met criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome (95% CI, 0 to 10). Ninety-one (67%) patients (CI, 56 to 78) had clinically active psychiatric disorders and 4 (3%) patients (CI, 0 to 8) had medical disorders that were considered a major cause of their fatigue. Thirty-four (25%) patients (CI, 14 to 36) had insufficient symptoms or objective findings of the chronic fatigue syndrome.
CONCLUSION: The chronic fatigue syndrome is rare among patients with symptoms of persistent fatigue. Most of these patients have psychiatric disorders.
Source: Manu P, Lane TJ, Matthews DA. The frequency of the chronic fatigue syndrome in patients with symptoms of persistent fatigue. Ann Intern Med. 1988 Oct 1;109(7):554-6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3421564