Wagner, Dieter, Nisenbaum, Rosane, Heim, Christine et al. · Population health metrics · 2005 · DOI
Researchers created and tested a new questionnaire called the CDC CFS Symptom Inventory to help measure the many different symptoms that people with ME/CFS experience—not just fatigue, but also other important symptoms like problems with memory, sleep, and pain. They gave this questionnaire to 164 people (some with ME/CFS, some with other illnesses, and some without fatigue) and found that the questionnaire reliably distinguished people with ME/CFS from others and worked well when compared to existing fatigue measurement tools.
Having a reliable, validated tool to measure the full range of ME/CFS symptoms—beyond just fatigue—is important for both clinical diagnosis and research studies, allowing clinicians and researchers to more accurately assess and track the illness. This instrument fills a significant gap because most existing questionnaires focus narrowly on fatigue rather than the multi-system nature of ME/CFS.
This study validates a measurement tool but does not establish what causes ME/CFS, whether the symptoms are primary or secondary to fatigue, or how the illness progresses over time. It also does not prove the questionnaire will work equally well in other populations or geographic regions beyond the Wichita sample studied.
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
Wagner, Dieter, Nisenbaum, Rosane, Heim, Christine, Jones, James F, Unger, Elizabeth R, & Reeves, William C (2005). Psychometric properties of the CDC Symptom Inventory for assessment of chronic fatigue syndrome.. Population health metrics. https://doi.org/10.1186/1478-7954-3-8
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-wagner-2005-psychometric-properties,
author = {Wagner, Dieter and Nisenbaum, Rosane and Heim, Christine and Jones, James F and Unger, Elizabeth R and Reeves, William C},
title = {Psychometric properties of the CDC Symptom Inventory for assessment of chronic fatigue syndrome.},
journal = {Population health metrics},
year = {2005},
doi = {10.1186/1478-7954-3-8},
note = {PubMed: 16042777},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/wagner-2005-psychometric-properties},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/wagner-2005-psychometric-properties
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.