Thompson, Elizabeth A, Mathie, Robert T, Baitson, Elizabeth S et al. · Homeopathy : the journal of the Faculty of Homeopathy · 2008 · DOI
This study collected information from five NHS homeopathic hospitals in the UK to understand what conditions patients were being treated for and whether they felt better. Researchers recorded data from nearly 1,800 patient visits over 4 weeks, including what health problems patients had and whether they noticed improvements in their daily life. Among patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), about 59% reported meaningful improvements in their daily functioning after 6 or more appointments.
This study is one of the few systematic evaluations of homeopathic treatment outcomes in CFS within a formal healthcare setting. For ME/CFS patients exploring complementary approaches or seeking any treatment option associated with reported improvement in daily functioning, understanding real-world outcome data from a cohort of 1,797 patients—including those with CFS—provides relevant information about patient-reported experiences in this context.
This study does not prove that homeopathy causes CFS improvement; it only documents patient-reported changes without a control group or placebo arm. The cross-sectional design with variable follow-up times, lack of objective physiological measures, and absence of standardized CFS diagnostic criteria (it was 2008) limit causal inference. The bimodal age distribution and self-selected cohort (patients willing to pursue homeopathy) may not represent typical ME/CFS populations.
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
Thompson, Elizabeth A, Mathie, Robert T, Baitson, Elizabeth S, Barron, Susan J, Berkovitz, Saul R, Brands, Martien, et al. (2008). Towards standard setting for patient-reported outcomes in the NHS homeopathic hospitals.. Homeopathy : the journal of the Faculty of Homeopathy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.homp.2008.06.005
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-thompson-2008-towards-standard,
author = {Thompson, Elizabeth A and Mathie, Robert T and Baitson, Elizabeth S and Barron, Susan J and Berkovitz, Saul R and Brands, Martien and Fisher, Peter and Kirby, Tom M and Leckridge, Robert W and Mercer, Stewart W and Nielsen, Hugh J and Ratsey, David H K and Reilly, David and Roniger, Helmut and Whitmarsh, Thomas E},
title = {Towards standard setting for patient-reported outcomes in the NHS homeopathic hospitals.},
journal = {Homeopathy : the journal of the Faculty of Homeopathy},
year = {2008},
doi = {10.1016/j.homp.2008.06.005},
note = {PubMed: 18657769},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/thompson-2008-towards-standard},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/thompson-2008-towards-standard
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