Thase, M E · Reviews of infectious diseases · 1991 · DOI
This paper examines how depression and ME/CFS are connected and how to tell them apart. The authors warn that depression is sometimes mistakenly diagnosed as ME/CFS, while in other cases ME/CFS itself may cause depression-like symptoms. They recommend that doctors use multiple assessment tools and be careful to distinguish between these conditions rather than assuming one is the cause of the other.
Distinguishing between depression and ME/CFS is critical for accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment. Misdiagnosis can lead to ineffective or harmful interventions, while understanding how depression relates to ME/CFS helps clinicians provide better care and researchers design more rigorous studies.
This is a methods paper rather than an empirical study, so it does not present new data proving any causal relationship between depression and CFS. It does not establish whether depression causes ME/CFS, ME/CFS causes depression, or how often each scenario occurs in clinical practice.
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
Thase, M E (1991). Assessment of depression in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.. Reviews of infectious diseases. https://doi.org/10.1093/clinids/13.supplement_1.s114
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-thase-1991-assessment-depression,
author = {Thase, M E},
title = {Assessment of depression in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.},
journal = {Reviews of infectious diseases},
year = {1991},
doi = {10.1093/clinids/13.supplement_1.s114},
note = {PubMed: 2020797},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/thase-1991-assessment-depression},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/thase-1991-assessment-depression
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