Johnston, Samantha C, Staines, Donald R, Marshall-Gradisnik, Sonya M · Clinical epidemiology · 2016 · DOI
This study looked at 535 Australian patients with ME/CFS to understand who gets the disease and what symptoms they experience. Researchers found that ME/CFS mainly affects middle-aged women who are well-educated, and often starts after infections like the flu or gut illnesses, or during stressful periods. The most common symptoms included extreme fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep, headaches, muscle and joint pain, and sensitivity to temperature changes.
This is the first systematic characterization of Australian ME/CFS patients using current diagnostic criteria, providing crucial epidemiological data to guide clinical recognition and healthcare resource allocation. Understanding common triggers and symptom profiles helps clinicians identify at-risk populations and may inform prevention or early intervention strategies.
This study does not establish causation—identifying infections and stress before illness onset does not prove they cause ME/CFS. The cross-sectional design captures only a snapshot in time and cannot determine whether symptom profiles change over disease course. Selection bias may exist since participants were enrolled through a research database rather than population-wide sampling.
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
Johnston, Samantha C, Staines, Donald R, & Marshall-Gradisnik, Sonya M (2016). Epidemiological characteristics of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis in Australian patients.. Clinical epidemiology. https://doi.org/10.2147/CLEP.S96797
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-johnston-2016-epidemiological-characteristics,
author = {Johnston, Samantha C and Staines, Donald R and Marshall-Gradisnik, Sonya M},
title = {Epidemiological characteristics of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis in Australian patients.},
journal = {Clinical epidemiology},
year = {2016},
doi = {10.2147/CLEP.S96797},
note = {PubMed: 27279748},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/johnston-2016-epidemiological-characteristics},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/johnston-2016-epidemiological-characteristics
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