Illness behaviour in the chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple sclerosis

BMJ 1995;311:1092-1093 (21 October)

Letters

Illness behaviour in the chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple sclerosis

Choice of multiple sclerosis as comparison condition was inappropriate

EDITOR,--Peter Trigwell and colleagues compared patients withthe chronic fatigue syndrome with patients with multiple sclerosisand report similar responses on Pilowsky's illness behaviourquestionnaire.¹ There is accumulating evidence that the chronicfatigue syndrome is a functional disorder, with psychological,social, and physical factors implicated in its cause, whereasin multiple sclerosis the primary cause is physical. Wood etal compared patients with the chronic fatigue syndrome withpatients with various muscle diseases and found a threefoldincrease in psychiatric diagnoses in the group with the chronicfatigue syndrome.² Wessely et al describe an important prospectivecohort study and conclude that common infections play littlepart in causing the chronic fatigue syndrome but that both previouspsychological disorder and previous fatigue are associated withits development.³

We agree with Trigwell and colleagues that illness behaviouris highly relevant to the chronic . . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?

Relevant Article

"Abnormal" illness behaviour in chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple sclerosis: Peter Trigwell, Simon Hatcher, Michael Johnson, Philip Stanley, and Allan House
BMJ 1995 311: 15-18. [Abstract] [Full Text]