Gotts, Zoe M, Deary, Vincent, Newton, Julia et al. · BMJ open · 2013 · DOI
This study looked at sleep patterns in 343 people with chronic fatigue syndrome using overnight sleep monitoring machines. Researchers found that about 30% of patients had a separate sleep disorder, and the remaining patients fell into four different groups based on their sleep problems—some had trouble falling asleep, some had frequent sleep interruptions, some slept longer than average, and some had very short sleep with lots of waking. The findings suggest that people with ME/CFS have different types of sleep problems and may benefit from different sleep treatments based on their specific pattern.
Sleep disturbances are a hallmark symptom of ME/CFS, yet objective sleep findings have been inconsistent across prior research. This study provides evidence that ME/CFS involves heterogeneous sleep phenotypes rather than a single sleep pattern, which has important implications for personalizing sleep interventions and understanding the biological diversity within the ME/CFS population.
This study does not establish causation—it remains unknown whether abnormal sleep patterns cause ME/CFS symptoms, result from them, or reflect a shared underlying mechanism. The single-night polysomnography recording may not capture typical sleep patterns, and the cross-sectional design cannot determine whether these phenotypes are stable over time or predictive of clinical outcomes.
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
Gotts, Zoe M, Deary, Vincent, Newton, Julia, Van der Dussen, Donna, De Roy, Pierre, & Ellis, Jason G (2013). Are there sleep-specific phenotypes in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome? A cross-sectional polysomnography analysis.. BMJ open. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002999
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-gotts-2013-there-sleep,
author = {Gotts, Zoe M and Deary, Vincent and Newton, Julia and Van der Dussen, Donna and De Roy, Pierre and Ellis, Jason G},
title = {Are there sleep-specific phenotypes in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome? A cross-sectional polysomnography analysis.},
journal = {BMJ open},
year = {2013},
doi = {10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002999},
note = {PubMed: 23794547},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/gotts-2013-there-sleep},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/gotts-2013-there-sleep
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