Calvo, Natalia, Pueyo, Natalia, Gutiérrez, Fernando et al. · Actas espanolas de psiquiatria · 2018
This study looked at whether people with ME/CFS are more likely to have certain personality traits or patterns. Researchers gave 84 ME/CFS patients a personality assessment test and found that 64% met criteria for a personality disorder. The traits most strongly associated with personality disorders in this group were worry about relationships, repetitive thinking, social withdrawal, and perfectionism.
Understanding personality patterns in ME/CFS may help clinicians provide more targeted psychological support and better distinguish between personality-related distress and disease-specific symptoms. This is one of the first studies using DSM-5 personality assessment tools in CFS patients, providing a framework for future investigations into whether these traits are primary features, secondary responses to illness, or unrelated comorbidities.
This study does not establish whether personality patterns cause ME/CFS, result from living with ME/CFS, or are entirely independent comorbidities. The cross-sectional design cannot establish temporal relationships. Additionally, the PID-5 was not originally validated for CFS populations, so findings may not directly apply or may reflect assessment limitations rather than true personality differences.
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
Calvo, Natalia, Pueyo, Natalia, Gutiérrez, Fernando, Ferrer, Marc, Castro-Marrero, Jesús, Alegre, José, et al. (2018). Dimensional Personality Assessment among a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) sample with Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5).. Actas espanolas de psiquiatria. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30079926/
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-calvo-2018-dimensional-personality,
author = {Calvo, Natalia and Pueyo, Natalia and Gutiérrez, Fernando and Ferrer, Marc and Castro-Marrero, Jesús and Alegre, José and Casas, Miquel and Ramos Quiroga, Josep-Antoni and Sáez-Francàs, Naia},
title = {Dimensional Personality Assessment among a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) sample with Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5).},
journal = {Actas espanolas de psiquiatria},
year = {2018},
note = {PubMed: 30079926},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/calvo-2018-dimensional-personality},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/calvo-2018-dimensional-personality
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