Ablin, Jacob N, Zohar, Ada H, Zaraya-Blum, Reut et al. · PeerJ · 2016 · DOI
This study looked at whether people with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome have different personality patterns. Researchers surveyed 204 patients and found two distinct groups: one group tended to worry more, avoid situations that felt threatening, had difficulty identifying their emotions, and received less social support; the other group showed more resilience and healthier coping patterns. Importantly, these personality differences existed even though the groups had similar illness severity, suggesting that how people psychologically respond to their illness varies significantly.
This research demonstrates that ME/CFS patients are not a psychologically homogeneous group, suggesting that personalized treatment approaches targeting specific psychological vulnerabilities (worry, emotional avoidance, social isolation) may be more effective than one-size-fits-all interventions. Understanding these personality profiles could help clinicians identify patients who might benefit from psychological support alongside medical management, and may inform development of tailored interventions for different patient subgroups.
This study does not establish that personality traits cause ME/CFS or determine illness severity; it only identifies co-occurring psychological patterns in cross-sectional data. The findings do not prove that psychological interventions targeting these traits will improve medical outcomes. The high attrition rate (40.7%) and recruitment bias mean results may not represent all ME/CFS patients, and causality cannot be inferred from this observational design.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Ablin, Jacob N, Zohar, Ada H, Zaraya-Blum, Reut, & Buskila, Dan (2016). Distinctive personality profiles of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome patients.. PeerJ. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2421
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-ablin-2016-distinctive-personality,
author = {Ablin, Jacob N and Zohar, Ada H and Zaraya-Blum, Reut and Buskila, Dan},
title = {Distinctive personality profiles of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome patients.},
journal = {PeerJ},
year = {2016},
doi = {10.7717/peerj.2421},
note = {PubMed: 27672497},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/ablin-2016-distinctive-personality},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/ablin-2016-distinctive-personality
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