Mears, Cynthia J, Taylor, Renee R, Jordan, Karen M et al. · The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine · 2004 · DOI
This study looked at how common fatigue lasting more than one month is in teenagers visiting primary care clinics. Researchers found that about 8% of teens had prolonged fatigue and 4.4% had symptoms matching CFS-like illness. Teens with prolonged fatigue were more likely to also experience headaches, muscle pain, fever, and fatigue that worsened with exercise.
This study provides early epidemiological evidence that ME/CFS-like illness affects a meaningful proportion of adolescents in routine primary care settings. The identification of post-exertional fatigue as a key correlate aligns with contemporary understanding of ME/CFS pathophysiology and suggests clinicians should screen for this symptom pattern in fatigued adolescent patients.
This study cannot establish causation or the underlying mechanisms of prolonged fatigue and CFS-like illness—it only describes associations. The CFS-like case definition was author-created and may not align with formal diagnostic criteria (e.g., Fukuda definition), limiting comparability to other studies. Cross-sectional design means temporal relationships cannot be determined.
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
Mears, Cynthia J, Taylor, Renee R, Jordan, Karen M, Binns, Helen J, & Pediatric Practice Research Group (2004). Sociodemographic and symptom correlates of fatigue in an adolescent primary care sample.. The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2004.02.012
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-mears-2004-sociodemographic-symptom,
author = {Mears, Cynthia J and Taylor, Renee R and Jordan, Karen M and Binns, Helen J and Pediatric Practice Research Group},
title = {Sociodemographic and symptom correlates of fatigue in an adolescent primary care sample.},
journal = {The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine},
year = {2004},
doi = {10.1016/j.jadohealth.2004.02.012},
note = {PubMed: 15581533},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/mears-2004-sociodemographic-symptom},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/mears-2004-sociodemographic-symptom
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