It’s only one of the biggest reasons for them to miss school according to your telephone survey of their parents. Great diagnostic practices from the epidemiologist of the MEGA trial. Sure I’m united in the push to find blah blah.
Thanks,
@TiredSam, great post!
EC is not the first to have studied missing school. You might wish to refer to Dowsett EG and Colby J ‘Long term sickness absence due to ME/CFS in UK schools; an epidemiological study with medical and educational implications’ Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, 1997, 3, 29-42.
From my perspective, missing only 1 day a week of school, while serious from an educational perspective, is 'mild'. My son missed
three years, before starting back on one lesson a week for a year, before adding a second subject (and coping), and then moving into A levels, where he did 4 subjects over 3 years -- by which time he'd recovered (as far as we can tell) and has gone on to uni with no ill effects, in his fourth year now.
(Will add that while he was out of school he had other provision, a combination of online courses and home tutoring,
well spaced, which allowed him the rest he needed; this was based on sensible advice from Tymes Trust. Even so he had no other 'life', and most of all he hated missing out on school and all that goes with it. At one point he said, quite wistfully, 'I just want to be a kid at the back of a class....', with home tutoring he was always 'at the front', and he disliked that intensely.)
Missing one day a week, if you take it literally, is also poor from the pacing perspective, as more likely they are missing one lesson a day (out of, say, five), so perhaps dropping one subject. Still 'mild' by all counts.
That 'study' by EC based on parents input only is very poor, and does not give me much confidence in her further proposals!