Tschopp, Rea, König, Rahel S, Rejmer, Protazy et al. · Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences · 2023 · DOI
This Swiss study surveyed 169 ME/CFS patients to understand their experiences with the healthcare system. Patients faced long delays in getting diagnosed (averaging 6.7 years), saw many doctors before getting correct answers (11.1 appointments on average), and were frequently told their symptoms were psychological rather than physical. The study found that doctors in Switzerland lack knowledge about ME/CFS, leading to frustration, inappropriate treatments, and some patients traveling abroad for proper diagnosis.
This study documents significant healthcare system failures in ME/CFS diagnosis and management in a developed healthcare setting, illustrating how widespread medical knowledge gaps directly harm patients through delayed diagnoses, inappropriate therapies, and increased disease burden. For patients, it validates their frustrations and provides evidence supporting advocacy for improved physician education; for researchers and clinicians, it identifies critical gaps in Swiss medical training and practice.
This study does not prove that GET is objectively harmful to all ME/CFS patients—it documents patients' perceptions and retrospective reports, not controlled efficacy data. It does not establish causation between lack of physician knowledge and poor outcomes, only correlation. The findings are specific to Switzerland and may not generalize to other healthcare systems with different training structures or ME/CFS recognition.
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
Tschopp, Rea, König, Rahel S, Rejmer, Protazy, & Paris, Daniel H (2023). Health system support among patients with ME/CFS in Switzerland.. Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtumed.2022.12.019
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-tschopp-2023-health-system,
author = {Tschopp, Rea and König, Rahel S and Rejmer, Protazy and Paris, Daniel H},
title = {Health system support among patients with ME/CFS in Switzerland.},
journal = {Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences},
year = {2023},
doi = {10.1016/j.jtumed.2022.12.019},
note = {PubMed: 36852237},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/tschopp-2023-health-system},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/tschopp-2023-health-system
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.