Hinchado, María Dolores, Otero, Eduardo, Navarro, María Del Carmen et al. · Journal of clinical medicine · 2022 · DOI
This study looked at how fibromyalgia (FM) patients feel psychologically and how their quality of life is affected, especially when they also have ME/CFS. The researchers compared people with FM alone, people with both FM and ME/CFS, and healthy people without either condition. They found that regular physical exercise helped both groups feel less stressed and anxious, but having ME/CFS alongside FM didn't make things worse than FM alone.
For ME/CFS patients with fibromyalgia, this study clarifies that having both conditions doesn't necessarily worsen the psychological burden beyond FM alone, and suggests that physical activity may still provide some psychological benefits. This is important because many patients fear that codiagnosis will dramatically worsen outcomes.
This study does not prove that exercise causes psychological improvement—correlation was observed but causation cannot be established from cross-sectional data. It does not determine optimal exercise types or intensities for codiagnosed patients, nor does it account for post-exertional malaise or whether self-reported 'habitual exercise' was actually tolerated well by ME/CFS patients. The findings may not generalize to male patients or other age groups.
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
Hinchado, María Dolores, Otero, Eduardo, Navarro, María Del Carmen, Martín-Cordero, Leticia, Gálvez, Isabel, & Ortega, Eduardo (2022). Influence of Codiagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Habitual Physical Exercise on the Psychological Status and Quality of Life of Patients with Fibromyalgia.. Journal of clinical medicine. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm11195735
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-hinchado-2022-influence-codiagnosis,
author = {Hinchado, María Dolores and Otero, Eduardo and Navarro, María Del Carmen and Martín-Cordero, Leticia and Gálvez, Isabel and Ortega, Eduardo},
title = {Influence of Codiagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Habitual Physical Exercise on the Psychological Status and Quality of Life of Patients with Fibromyalgia.},
journal = {Journal of clinical medicine},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.3390/jcm11195735},
note = {PubMed: 36233602},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hinchado-2022-influence-codiagnosis},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hinchado-2022-influence-codiagnosis
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