Yang, Manshu, Keller, San, Lin, Jin-Mann S · Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2019 · DOI
Researchers tested whether a short questionnaire called PROMIS Fatigue (7 questions) accurately measures fatigue in people with ME/CFS. They found that the questionnaire reliably captures how tired ME/CFS patients feel, works the same way for different ages and genders, and can detect when fatigue changes over time. This tool may help doctors and researchers measure whether new treatments for ME/CFS actually work.
Having a validated, brief fatigue measurement tool is essential for ME/CFS clinical trials and treatment development. This study provides evidence that the PROMIS F-SF is reliable and responsive enough to measure whether experimental therapies actually reduce fatigue in ME/CFS patients, potentially accelerating the pace of drug development for this debilitating condition.
This study validates a measurement tool but does not prove what causes ME/CFS fatigue or propose any treatments. It also does not establish whether improvements on this questionnaire correlate with changes in objective biomarkers or real-world functional capacity. The study's cross-sectional design and relatively small follow-up sample (n=386) limit causal inference.
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 →
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