Chu, Lily, Elliott, Meghan, Stein, Eleanor et al. · Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021 · DOI
People with ME/CFS face a higher risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide than the general population. This article provides doctors with practical guidance on how to identify and help patients who may be struggling with these thoughts. The authors explain that ME/CFS makes this challenge harder because there are no proven treatments, symptoms are severe, and many healthcare providers don't fully understand the disease.
Suicide risk in ME/CFS is inadequately addressed in both clinical practice and research, despite evidence of elevated mortality rates. This article bridges a critical gap by providing healthcare providers with concrete, disease-informed strategies to assess and manage suicidality, potentially preventing deaths among this medically complex and historically underserved population.
This editorial does not present new epidemiological data quantifying suicide rates in ME/CFS or randomized controlled trials testing specific interventions. It does not establish causality between specific ME/CFS symptoms and suicidality, nor does it measure the effectiveness of recommended management strategies through original research.
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
Chu, Lily, Elliott, Meghan, Stein, Eleanor, & Jason, Leonard A (2021). Identifying and Managing Suicidality in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland). https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9060629
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-chu-2021-identifying-managing,
author = {Chu, Lily and Elliott, Meghan and Stein, Eleanor and Jason, Leonard A},
title = {Identifying and Managing Suicidality in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.},
journal = {Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland)},
year = {2021},
doi = {10.3390/healthcare9060629},
note = {PubMed: 34070367},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/chu-2021-identifying-managing},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/chu-2021-identifying-managing
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