Maroti, Daniel, Johansson, Robert · Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021 · DOI
This study examined whether changing how patients think about their symptoms (cognitive change) is necessary to improve symptoms in people with functional somatic syndromes like ME/CFS. The researchers explored the relationship between psychological thinking patterns and symptom improvement to understand better which approaches might help patients feel better.
Understanding whether cognitive change is required for symptom improvement has important implications for ME/CFS treatment strategies. If cognitive change is not necessary for recovery, it could redirect research and clinical practice toward other mechanisms of benefit, potentially reducing stigmatizing assumptions that ME/CFS symptoms are primarily psychological in origin.
This study does not establish whether cognitive interventions are effective for ME/CFS, nor does it prove that symptom improvement requires or does not require cognitive change based on randomized controlled trial evidence. As a theoretical review, it cannot definitively establish causal mechanisms without empirical data from controlled treatment studies.
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 →
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Primary citation
Maroti, Daniel & Johansson, Robert (2021). Is Cognitive Change Necessary to Alleviate Symptoms in Patients With Functional Somatic Syndrome?. Frontiers in psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.781083
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-maroti-2021-cognitive-change,
author = {Maroti, Daniel and Johansson, Robert},
title = {Is Cognitive Change Necessary to Alleviate Symptoms in Patients With Functional Somatic Syndrome?},
journal = {Frontiers in psychiatry},
year = {2021},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyt.2021.781083},
note = {PubMed: 34795604},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/maroti-2021-cognitive-change},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/maroti-2021-cognitive-change
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