Do you believe that CFS is a neurological condition, in the usual sense of ‘neurological’?
This is very interesting as I am pretty sure Wessely reports the question as, "Do you believe that
ME is a neurological condition, in the usual sense of ‘neurological’?
Secondly a syndrome by defintion as in CF
S is not one thing its a loose cluster of symptoms of unknown origin. However in terms of CFS listing in the WHO ICD it is in the appendix under see G93.3 of the neurological sections. The question is especially devious when centring it in the context of a host of questions of conversion disorder. In Psychology this could be easily interpreted as using the power of suggestion.
Also were the responses anonymous because if not it strikes me that these questions and the way they are framed are the same as the experiment where you ask 10 people how many times a bell struck after pre arranging with nine people to say 9 times when the bell actually struck 10 times.
Even if the question were anonymous there could still be an element of the above at play.
It would have been interesting if they had asked the question, "how many now understood to be physical diseases have been thought to be some version of conversion disorder in the past" and can you name any right up to last two decades where people where said to be malingering due to issues like inadequate testing in the absense of MRI machines".
How about they asked the physicians, do you know how many definitions of CFS there are and their strengths and weaknesses in identifying groups with neurological issues?
Do you believe that CFS is a neurological condition, in the usual sense of ‘neurological’?
The above question is also misleading as it only asks if the condition is neurological and doesn't ask if it is immunological or viral etc.
They could have also asked (answer for each period of time),
"if you were a physician 100, 50, 25, 10, years ago and you encountered a patient with MS, would you have diagnosed him with a neurological condition, neurasthenia, malingering, demonic possession or conversion disorder and what tools would you have used to aid in the diagnosis.
How about one final question, "should psychiatrists or any other physician diagnose conversion disorder or CFS without carrying out a full battery of tests and discourage further testing on such patients in order to come to a conclusion of the patient being medically unexplained"?