Dutch investigators appear to be on a roll—they are producing so much crap that it is hard to keep track. (I have recently written
multiple posts about a Dutch study of CBT for fatigue associated with long Covid.) The latest to come to my attention is
a real mess called
“Effectiveness of psychosomatic therapy for patients with persistent somatic symptoms: Results from the CORPUS randomised controlled trial in primary care,” published in the
Journal of Psychosomatic Research.
As I have noted before, the Journal of Psychosomatic Research appears to be something of a house organ for the psychologizing camp. Professor Michael Sharpe, a psychiatrist and one of the principal investigators of the discredited and arguably fraudulent PACE trial, is on its advisory board. That pretty much says it all. Interestingly, current and previous editors of the journal noted in
a commentary published a few years ago that unblinded studies relying on self-reported outcomes are more prone to bias than those including objective measures. That recognition does not seem to prevent the journal from accepting reports about studies that fit this pattern—including the doozy of a disaster discussed in this post.
