Rimes, Katharine A, Lievesley, Kate, Chalder, Trudie · Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2017 · DOI
This study looked at how adolescents with ME/CFS respond to stress compared to young people with asthma and healthy teenagers. Researchers measured physical stress responses (heart rate and skin sweating) while young people gave a speech. Adolescents with ME/CFS showed signs of being more stressed before, during, and after the task, and their bodies took longer to calm down afterward compared to the other groups.
Understanding stress vulnerability and autonomic dysfunction in adolescents with ME/CFS is critical because it identifies potential physiological mechanisms underlying the condition and may guide treatment approaches targeting stress regulation and recovery. This research provides objective biomarkers (HRV and SCR patterns) that could help validate young people's experiences and inform clinical assessment and intervention strategies.
This study does not prove that stress causes ME/CFS or that stress management alone will resolve the condition. The cross-sectional design cannot establish causality—the observed autonomic changes could result from chronic illness rather than predisposing to it. Additionally, laboratory stress responses may not fully represent real-world stress exposure or predict clinical outcomes over time.
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
Rimes, Katharine A, Lievesley, Kate, & Chalder, Trudie (2017). Stress vulnerability in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome: experimental study investigating heart rate variability and skin conductance responses.. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12711
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-rimes-2017-stress-vulnerability,
author = {Rimes, Katharine A and Lievesley, Kate and Chalder, Trudie},
title = {Stress vulnerability in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome: experimental study investigating heart rate variability and skin conductance responses.},
journal = {Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines},
year = {2017},
doi = {10.1111/jcpp.12711},
note = {PubMed: 28276066},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/rimes-2017-stress-vulnerability},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/rimes-2017-stress-vulnerability
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