Mohanty, April F, Muthukutty, Anusha, Carter, Marjorie E et al. · Medical care · 2015 · DOI
This study looked at how common chronic multisymptom illnesses—including chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and irritable bowel syndrome—are among female veterans who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Researchers found that these conditions were more than twice as common in this group compared to other female veterans. The study suggests that deployment experiences may play a role in developing these illnesses.
This work demonstrates that female combat veterans experience substantially elevated rates of ME/CFS and related multisymptom illnesses compared to general female veteran populations, highlighting a vulnerable subgroup requiring enhanced clinical recognition. Understanding deployment-related factors contributing to CMI prevalence may inform screening protocols and targeted interventions for this population.
This study does not prove that deployment causes CMI, only that these conditions occur more frequently in deployed veterans—causality cannot be established from cross-sectional data. The role of mental health diagnoses (depression, PTSD) as confounders versus mediators of the deployment-CMI relationship remains unclear. The study also cannot determine whether coding practices or true disease prevalence differences account for the observed differences.
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
Mohanty, April F, Muthukutty, Anusha, Carter, Marjorie E, Palmer, Miland N, Judd, Joshua, Helmer, Drew, et al. (2015). Chronic multisymptom illness among female Veterans deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.. Medical care. https://doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0000000000000314
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-mohanty-2015-chronic-multisymptom,
author = {Mohanty, April F and Muthukutty, Anusha and Carter, Marjorie E and Palmer, Miland N and Judd, Joshua and Helmer, Drew and McAndrew, Lisa M and Garvin, Jennifer H and Samore, Matthew H and Gundlapalli, Adi V},
title = {Chronic multisymptom illness among female Veterans deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.},
journal = {Medical care},
year = {2015},
doi = {10.1097/MLR.0000000000000314},
note = {PubMed: 25767968},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/mohanty-2015-chronic-multisymptom},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/mohanty-2015-chronic-multisymptom
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