Loades, M E, Vitoratou, S, Rimes, K A et al. · Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy · 2020 · DOI
This study tested two short questionnaires to measure how much ME/CFS affects young people's daily activities—both at school and socially, and their physical abilities. The researchers found that both questionnaires work well, are reliable, and accurately capture the impact of the illness. These tools could help doctors and researchers better track how adolescents with ME/CFS are functioning over time.
ME/CFS significantly disrupts adolescents' schooling and social development, yet previously no validated instruments existed to reliably measure this impact. Establishing these validated, brief measures enables clinicians and researchers to consistently assess functioning, track disease progression, and evaluate treatment effectiveness in young people with ME/CFS.
This study does not establish whether these measures can detect changes over time (longitudinal validity) or predict future outcomes. The cross-sectional design only demonstrates that the questionnaires work at a single time point, not how they perform in clinical practice or whether they're sensitive to meaningful changes in patient status.
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
Loades, M E, Vitoratou, S, Rimes, K A, & Chalder, T (2020). Assessing functioning in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome: psychometric properties and factor structure of the School and Social Adjustment Scale and the Physical Functioning Subscale of the SF36.. Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352465820000193
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-loades-2020-assessing-functioning,
author = {Loades, M E and Vitoratou, S and Rimes, K A and Chalder, T},
title = {Assessing functioning in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome: psychometric properties and factor structure of the School and Social Adjustment Scale and the Physical Functioning Subscale of the SF36.},
journal = {Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.1017/S1352465820000193},
note = {PubMed: 32234097},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/loades-2020-assessing-functioning},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/loades-2020-assessing-functioning
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