Another nice addition to Jason's body of work.He first showed that the "Empiric Definition" (Reeves, 2005) had led to a 10 fold increase in the diagnosis of CFS (creating a much more heterogeneous patient group that was originally diagnosed using the Holmes criteria). However, the question remained, was the Reeves criteria capturing more ME/CFS patients (in addition to more depressed patients)? Did the "Empiric Definition" have any redeeming qualities. This study answers that question with a resounding NO.
Even thought the "Empiric Definition" was based upon the Fukuda criteria, it fails to properly identify as many ME/CFS patients (79%) as the Canadian Case Definition (87%). The "Empiric Definition" is neither the most specific nor the most sensitive diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS.
Data mining: comparing the empiric CFS to the Canadian ME/CFS case definition.
[FONT="]Jason LA, Skendrovic B, Furst J, Brown A, Weng A, Bronikowski C.[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]J Clin Psychol.[/FONT] 2011 Aug 5. doi: 10.1002/jclp.20827. [Epub ahead of print]
Even thought the "Empiric Definition" was based upon the Fukuda criteria, it fails to properly identify as many ME/CFS patients (79%) as the Canadian Case Definition (87%). The "Empiric Definition" is neither the most specific nor the most sensitive diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS.
Data mining: comparing the empiric CFS to the Canadian ME/CFS case definition.
[FONT="]Jason LA, Skendrovic B, Furst J, Brown A, Weng A, Bronikowski C.[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]J Clin Psychol.[/FONT] 2011 Aug 5. doi: 10.1002/jclp.20827. [Epub ahead of print]
Abstract
This article contrasts two case definitions for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). We compared the empiric CFS case definition (Reeves et al., 2005) and the Canadian ME/CFS clinical case definition (Carruthers et al., 2003) with a sample of individuals with CFS versus those without. Data mining with decision trees was used to identify the best items to identify patients with CFS. Data mining is a statistical technique that was used to help determine which of the survey questions were most effective for accurately classifying cases. The empiric criteria identified about 79% of patients with CFS and the Canadian criteria identified 87% of patients. Items identified by the Canadian criteria had more construct validity. The implications of these findings are discussed.