Sygit-Kowalkowska, Ewa · Psychiatria polska · 2021 · DOI
This study looked at fatigue in psychiatric nurses and found that most experienced moderate to high levels of chronic fatigue. The research suggests that workplace communication problems—like unclear instructions and poor teamwork—may contribute to this fatigue, and that some people's personality traits may make them more resilient to fatigue than others.
While this study examines occupational fatigue rather than ME/CFS specifically, it contributes valuable evidence that work environment stressors and individual temperament traits significantly influence chronic fatigue severity. Understanding these modifiable work-related factors may inform workplace accommodations and stress-reduction strategies relevant to fatigued populations, including those with ME/CFS.
This study does not demonstrate causation—only associations between work environment factors and fatigue. It focuses on psychiatric nurses specifically and may not generalize to ME/CFS patients or other populations. The study does not establish whether poor communication causes fatigue or whether fatigued individuals perceive their work environment more negatively.
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
Sygit-Kowalkowska, Ewa (2021). Chronic fatigue of nurses in view of the challenges of contemporary psychiatric care. Do temperament and work environment matter?. Psychiatria polska. https://doi.org/10.12740/PP/OnlineFirst/118480
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-sygit-kowalkowska-2021-chronic-fatigue,
author = {Sygit-Kowalkowska, Ewa},
title = {Chronic fatigue of nurses in view of the challenges of contemporary psychiatric care. Do temperament and work environment matter?},
journal = {Psychiatria polska},
year = {2021},
doi = {10.12740/PP/OnlineFirst/118480},
note = {PubMed: 34997742},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/sygit-kowalkowska-2021-chronic-fatigue},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/sygit-kowalkowska-2021-chronic-fatigue
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.