De Venter, Maud, Illegems, Jela, Van Royen, Rita et al. · Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020 · DOI
This study looked at whether people with ME/CFS who experienced trauma in childhood respond differently to a specific talking therapy called cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). Researchers followed 105 patients receiving group CBT sessions over 9-12 months and tracked their fatigue levels and physical function at different time points. They found that having a history of childhood trauma did not affect how well people improved with CBT.
This finding is clinically reassuring for ME/CFS patients with childhood trauma histories, suggesting they should not be excluded from evidence-based CBT treatment. For clinicians, it supports a more inclusive approach to allocating patients to dedicated GCBT programs regardless of trauma background, potentially expanding treatment access.
This study does not prove that childhood trauma has no psychological impact on CFS patients generally—only that it did not predict differential response to GCBT specifically. The observational design cannot establish causation and does not account for trauma severity, type, or treatment of the trauma itself. Results may not generalize to other CFS treatment modalities or to patients receiving individual rather than group therapy.
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
De Venter, Maud, Illegems, Jela, Van Royen, Rita, Sabbe, Bernard G C, Moorkens, Greta, & Van Den Eede, Filip (2020). The Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and the Response to Group Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.. Frontiers in psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00536
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-de-venter-2020-relationship-between,
author = {De Venter, Maud and Illegems, Jela and Van Royen, Rita and Sabbe, Bernard G C and Moorkens, Greta and Van Den Eede, Filip},
title = {The Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and the Response to Group Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.},
journal = {Frontiers in psychiatry},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00536},
note = {PubMed: 32595538},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/de-venter-2020-relationship-between},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/de-venter-2020-relationship-between
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