Brown, Abigail A, Jason, Leonard A · Fatigue : biomedicine, health & behavior · 2014 · DOI
This study tested whether a questionnaire called the DePaul Symptom Questionnaire (DSQ) accurately measures the symptoms people with ME/CFS experience. Researchers found that ME/CFS symptoms naturally group into three main categories: problems with the nervous system and immune system, problems with thinking and memory, and a worsening of symptoms after physical activity. The questionnaire was shown to be a reliable tool for identifying and measuring these symptom patterns in ME/CFS patients.
Having a validated, comprehensive symptom measurement tool is essential for both clinical diagnosis and research studies of ME/CFS. This study provides evidence that the DSQ accurately captures the major symptom clusters experienced by patients, which improves how clinicians can assess severity and how researchers can consistently measure treatment outcomes across studies.
This study does not establish what causes these symptom clusters or prove that the three identified factors represent distinct biological mechanisms. It also does not test whether the DSQ can predict treatment response or disease progression, and the validation was performed on relatively well-characterized samples that may not fully represent all ME/CFS patients globally.
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
Brown, Abigail A & Jason, Leonard A (2014). Validating a measure of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome symptomatology.. Fatigue : biomedicine, health & behavior. https://doi.org/10.1080/21641846.2014.928014
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-brown-2014-validating-measure,
author = {Brown, Abigail A and Jason, Leonard A},
title = {Validating a measure of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome symptomatology.},
journal = {Fatigue : biomedicine, health & behavior},
year = {2014},
doi = {10.1080/21641846.2014.928014},
note = {PubMed: 27213118},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/brown-2014-validating-measure},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/brown-2014-validating-measure
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