Jackson, H, MacLeod, A K · Clinical psychology & psychotherapy · 2017 · DOI
This study looked at well-being in people with ME/CFS, not just focusing on what's wrong, but also on what's right. Researchers found that people with ME/CFS had lower well-being than healthy people, especially in areas like personal growth, feeling in control of life, and self-acceptance. Importantly, well-being was more connected to emotional and psychological symptoms than to physical fatigue itself, suggesting that treating the emotional side of living with ME/CFS might be just as important as treating the fatigue.
Most ME/CFS research focuses on illness and distress rather than positive functioning. This study identifies specific well-being deficits that could become treatment targets, suggesting that improving quality of life and psychological functioning may enhance existing therapies that currently leave many patients with residual symptoms.
This study does not prove that improving well-being will reduce physical fatigue or other ME/CFS symptoms—it only shows these measures are associated. The cross-sectional design cannot determine whether low well-being causes psychological distress or vice versa. The findings are observational and do not establish whether well-being interventions would actually improve treatment 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
Jackson, H & MacLeod, A K (2017). Well-being in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Relationship to Symptoms and Psychological Distress.. Clinical psychology & psychotherapy. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2051
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-jackson-2017-well-being,
author = {Jackson, H and MacLeod, A K},
title = {Well-being in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Relationship to Symptoms and Psychological Distress.},
journal = {Clinical psychology & psychotherapy},
year = {2017},
doi = {10.1002/cpp.2051},
note = {PubMed: 27739228},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jackson-2017-well-being},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jackson-2017-well-being
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