Frølund Pedersen, H, Holsting, A, Frostholm, L et al. · Patient education and counseling · 2019 · DOI
This study tested whether helping patients with multiple overlapping conditions (like ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, and IBS) understand their illness through education and assessment improves their wellbeing. Patients received a clinical assessment, group education sessions, and a follow-up visit. The results showed that patients worried less about their illness, felt better about what was happening to their bodies, and were more willing to try self-help strategies.
For ME/CFS patients, this research addresses a critical barrier to treatment engagement: the lack of clear illness explanations and understanding of how multiple overlapping symptoms connect. Helping patients develop accurate illness perceptions may improve adherence to management strategies and reduce psychological distress, potentially leading to better outcomes and quality of life.
This study does not prove that the intervention causes improved outcomes, as there was no control group for comparison. The modest symptom improvements may reflect natural variation, placebo effects, or regression to the mean rather than true treatment efficacy. Long-term durability of benefits beyond 19 weeks remains unknown.
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
Frølund Pedersen, H, Holsting, A, Frostholm, L, Rask, C, Jensen, J S, Høeg, M D, et al. (2019). "Understand your illness and your needs": Assessment-informed patient education for people with multiple functional somatic syndromes.. Patient education and counseling. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2019.04.016
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-frlund-pedersen-2019-understand-your,
author = {Frølund Pedersen, H and Holsting, A and Frostholm, L and Rask, C and Jensen, J S and Høeg, M D and Schröder, A},
title = {"Understand your illness and your needs": Assessment-informed patient education for people with multiple functional somatic syndromes.},
journal = {Patient education and counseling},
year = {2019},
doi = {10.1016/j.pec.2019.04.016},
note = {PubMed: 31023608},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/frlund-pedersen-2019-understand-your},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/frlund-pedersen-2019-understand-your
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