Banovic, Ingrid, Scrima, Fabrizio, Fornasieri, Isabelle et al. · BMC psychology · 2023 · DOI
Researchers tested a new questionnaire called the MCAS to measure chronic fatigue and exhaustion in French-speaking patients. The questionnaire asks about physical tiredness, how much fatigue limits daily life, and how it affects relationships. The study found that the MCAS works well and can detect differences in fatigue severity between people with different conditions, including ME/CFS.
A validated, multidimensional fatigue measurement tool specific to French-speaking populations enables better clinical assessment and research consistency in ME/CFS. The MCAS captures both severity and qualitative differences in how fatigue manifests across physical, social, and lifestyle domains, supporting more nuanced patient outcomes evaluation.
This study does not establish whether the MCAS predicts treatment response, prognosis, or recovery in ME/CFS. The single online survey design limits causal inference and generalizability beyond French-speaking populations. Cross-sectional data cannot determine whether the four dimensions represent distinct mechanisms or simply different expressions of a single underlying process.
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
Banovic, Ingrid, Scrima, Fabrizio, Fornasieri, Isabelle, Beaugerie, Laurent, Coquart, Jérémy, Fourgon, Chloé, et al. (2023). Psychometric validation of the French Multidimensional Chronic Asthenia Scale (MCAS) in a sample of 621 patients with chronic fatigue.. BMC psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-023-01358-1
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-banovic-2023-psychometric-validation,
author = {Banovic, Ingrid and Scrima, Fabrizio and Fornasieri, Isabelle and Beaugerie, Laurent and Coquart, Jérémy and Fourgon, Chloé and Iodice, Pierpaolo and Nion-Larmurier, Isabelle and Savoye, Guillaume and Sorin, Anne-Laure and Tourny, Claire and Augustinova, Maria},
title = {Psychometric validation of the French Multidimensional Chronic Asthenia Scale (MCAS) in a sample of 621 patients with chronic fatigue.},
journal = {BMC psychology},
year = {2023},
doi = {10.1186/s40359-023-01358-1},
note = {PubMed: 37817287},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/banovic-2023-psychometric-validation},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-25. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/banovic-2023-psychometric-validation
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