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CFS: comparing outcomes in White British and Black and minority ethnic patients

Scarecrow

Revolting Peasant
Messages
1,904
Location
Scotland
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/early/2016/01/22/bjp.bp.115.169300

Articles

Chronic fatigue syndrome: comparing outcomes in White British and Black and minority ethnic patients after cognitive–behavioural therapy

Tom Ingman, Sheila Ali, Kamaldeep Bhui, Trudie Chalder

The British Journal of Psychiatry Feb 2016, DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.115.169300

  • Declaration of interest
    K.B. is Editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry; he was not involved in the decision to publish this paper. T.C. receives royalties for self-help books on chronic fatigue.
Abstract

Background
Cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) is one of the most promising treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). It is unclear whether CBT is effective for Black and minority ethnic (BME) groups.

Aims
To assess the effectiveness of CBT in BME patients compared with White British patients presenting to a specialist CFS service.

Method
Data from 67 (19.0%) BME participants and 285 (81.0%) White British participants referred to a specialist CFS service in the UK were collected at baseline and after CBT treatment.

Results
Pairwise comparisons revealed that both BME participants and White British participants significantly improved on measures of fatigue severity (P < 0.001), physical functioning (P < 0.001) and work/social adjustment (P < 0.001). Independent samples t-tests showed that BME participants improved despite exhibiting significantly higher baseline damage beliefs (P = 0.009), catastrophising (P = 0.024), all-or-nothing behaviour (P = 0.036) and avoidance/resting behaviour (P = 0.001), compared with White British participants.

Conclusions
To our knowledge, this study is the first to indicate that CBT is effective for treating CFS in a group of patients from diverse BME backgrounds.

o_O
 

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Denise

Senior Member
Messages
1,095
How effective is their type of CBT in people of "diverse BME" with other illnesses?
 

Cheshire

Senior Member
Messages
1,129
comparing outcomes in White British and Black
:eek:

Do people with black skin's brain function differently? Do the color of your skin make you experiment feelings in a different way? Do the color of one's skin have an effect on cognition?

Trudie Chalder is definetly NOT a scientist.
 

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
Conclusions
To our knowledge, this study is the first to indicate that CBT is effective for treating CFS in a group of patients from diverse BME backgrounds.

Well that's an amazing finding, because obviously the assumption until now has been that people from diverse BME backgrounds wouldn't react at all to CBT, unlike White British people who are happily cured of ME by it.

There's a reason why this is the "first study" on the subject.
 

Countrygirl

Senior Member
Messages
5,429
Location
UK
BME participants improved despite exhibiting significantly higher baseline damage beliefs (P = 0.009), catastrophising (P = 0.024), all-or-nothing behaviour (P = 0.036) and avoidance/resting behaviour (P = 0.001), compared with White British participants.

How offensive! This is almost bordering on racism.
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
How offensive! This is almost bordering on racism.

I'd say it's well and truly crossed over that border.

Unless I'm reading this wrong, they're saying that black and minority ethnic people are more inclined to harbour false illness beliefs and to 'catastrophise' than white people are, are more prone to engaging in 'all-or-nothing behaviour' and 'avoidance' (I think that's biopsychosocial speak for 'malingering', isn't it?).

This reads like a despatch from some particularly unpleasant functionary of the East India Company, circa 1886. Be interesting to see if this one makes the front page of the Guardian. It should (and not in a good way).
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
I wonder if our pure-bred English lady from King's is descended from a slave trader?

They seem to have taken care to have a ‘diverse’ group on the research team. But the question is, what about the core biases built into standard psychological measures for things like ‘all-or-nothing behaviour’ or 'catastrophising'? These are, like so much in psychology, subjective concepts. Given that academic psychology has always been predominantly the preserve of white people of certain socioeconomic groups, how can they know that what they measured here at baseline wasn’t cultural bias hard-wired into some fundamental concepts of psychology, rather than any fundamental differences in the patient groups? They can’t.

I find this paper very revealing. It says a lot about the business of psychology, none of it good.
 

jimells

Senior Member
Messages
2,009
Location
northern Maine
Are there any UK anti-discrimination groups that might be interested in this study? According to a tweet I saw someplace, one of Coyne's immediate goals is to enlist support from other social institutions, like preachers, etc.
 

Aurator

Senior Member
Messages
625
It's a worthy complement to an earlier study done by Bhui and others, including a couple of well known names:
http://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-9-26

There's endless potential for doing studies like this - studies that start from vague and dodgy socio-ethnological premises and reach vague and dodgy "scientific" conclusions. You're not supposed to point out their utter worthlessness, because the supposedly egalitarian intentions driving such studies are in themselves noble enough to make the whole caper worthwhile.