Dar, Waseem R, Mir, Irfan A, Siddiq, Summra et al. · Clinics and practice · 2022 · DOI
This study looked at fatigue in people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an autoimmune disease that causes joint pain and inflammation. Researchers found that fatigue was very common and severely affected quality of life in RA patients, even when their inflammation was being treated. The study suggests that doctors often focus on treating joint inflammation but may overlook how much fatigue impacts their patients' daily lives.
This research is relevant to ME/CFS because it demonstrates that severe, persistent fatigue can occur in another autoimmune/inflammatory condition despite treatment targeting inflammation—suggesting that fatigue in ME/CFS may similarly require dedicated clinical attention beyond inflammation management. The study validates that fatigue significantly impairs function and quality of life in chronic illness and underscores how clinicians often overlook this symptom despite patients ranking it as a top priority.
This study does not establish that RA fatigue and ME/CFS fatigue share identical mechanisms, nor does it prove causation between inflammation and fatigue severity. The cross-sectional design cannot determine whether fatigue causes reduced quality of life or vice versa, and findings from an Indian RA population may not directly apply to ME/CFS patients or other populations.
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
Dar, Waseem R, Mir, Irfan A, Siddiq, Summra, Nadeem, Mir, & Singh, Gurmeet (2022). The Assessment of Fatigue in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients and Its Impact on Their Quality of Life.. Clinics and practice. https://doi.org/10.3390/clinpract12040062
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-dar-2022-assessment-fatigue,
author = {Dar, Waseem R and Mir, Irfan A and Siddiq, Summra and Nadeem, Mir and Singh, Gurmeet},
title = {The Assessment of Fatigue in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients and Its Impact on Their Quality of Life.},
journal = {Clinics and practice},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.3390/clinpract12040062},
note = {PubMed: 35892448},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/dar-2022-assessment-fatigue},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/dar-2022-assessment-fatigue
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.