Free full text: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21642850.2015.1014489#abstract
Chronic fatigue syndrome and myalgic encephalomyelitis: towards an empirical case definition
Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine: An Open Access Journal
Volume 3, Issue 1, 2015
Leonard A. Jasona*, Bobby Kota, Madison Sunnquista, Abigail Browna, Meredyth Evansa, Rachel Jantkea, Yolonda Williamsa, Jacob Fursta & Suzanne D. Vernonb
Received: 19 Nov 2014
Accepted: 19 Jan 2015
Published online: 20 Feb 2015
Abstract
Current case definitions of myalgic encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) have been based on consensus methods, but empirical methods could be used to identify core symptoms and thereby improve the reliability.
In the present study, several methods (i.e. continuous scores of symptoms, theoretically and empirically derived cut off scores of symptoms) were used to identify core symptoms best differentiating patients from controls.
In addition, data mining with decision trees was conducted.
Our study found a small number of core symptoms that have good sensitivity and specificity, and these included fatigue, post-exertional malaise, a neurocognitive symptom, and unrefreshing sleep.
Outcomes from these analyses suggest that using empirically selected symptoms can help guide the creation of a more reliable case definition.
Keywords
myalgic encephalomyelitits,
chronic fatigue syndrome,
biomarkers,
case definitions