Patient activism and the struggle for diagnosis: Gulf War illnesses and other medically unexplained physical symptoms in the US.
Zavestoski, Stephen, Brown, Phil, McCormick, Sabrina et al.·Social science & medicine (1982)·2004
This study looks at how Gulf War veterans and patients with conditions like ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, and chemical sensitivity have struggled to get their illnesses recognized as real by doctors. The researchers found that getting a diagnosis depends on several factors: whether the medical community accepts the diagnosis, whether patients themselves believe in it, how much uncertainty exists about what causes it, and how organized patients are in pushing for recognition. The authors suggest that doctors may need to accept that some illnesses may not have a clear cause, and that listening to what patients experience is just as important as finding a cause.