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References/Citations Needed

Messages
60
I am writing a paper for the medical journal The Female Patient (which goes to 40,000 Ob/gyns & 20,000 nurse practitioners in the US) & am struggling with tracking down a few references for citations. Can anyone direct me to the source for the often quoted statement that "housemates & sexual partners of PWC may have an increased risk of CFS", "80% of PWC have no known family history of CFS", and the paper stating that healthcare professionals have a slightly increased risk of CFS? I found one paper by Jason et al (1998 Am J Med) showing that nurses had a slightly increased risk of CFS. I'm also looking for the Jason et al 2006 paper that Maes cites in his letter to NeuroEndocrinology Letters (2009) finding that "a study published in 2006 found the average age of death from heart failure was significantly lower in CFS patients than the general US population at 59 years, versus 81". But if I can't find that paper, I'm just citing the Maes reference.

Thanks & much appreciation for help here! (or direction to a part of this forum or another website which categorizes CFS references). I tried Pub Med but didn't get very far.
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
Hi Dr Donnica - it's great that you're writing this paper - here's Dr Jason's homepage on the DePaul University website, which includes his publications list. I'm sure he'd be happy to answer questions (there's an email link for him too on that page) - maybe he knows the answers to your other questions too.

Thanks for all your efforts on our behalf!
 

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
Hi Dr Donnica, I am a nurse and was curious about the prevalence of CFS in nurses and health care professionals. I contracted EBV IgM+ in November 2008 and subsequently have never been better, but worse and demonstrate typical ME/CFS symptoms. I am convinced I got "this " from a patient's saliva drop that landed straight into my mouth as he was talking to me while starting an IV.

The only reference I got is from Dr Jason:

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome among Nurses
Leonard A. Jason and Lynne I. Wagner
The American Journal of Nursing, Vol. 98, No. 5 (May, 1998), pp. 16B+16F+16H


and with a bit of calculation from my part told me that nurses have 5 times more chances than the regular population to contract ME/CFS.
Of note, my union will not comment of the numbers of nurses affected, nor my employer.

Also Osler's Web mentions thousands of letter from nurses and doctors sent to the CDC with the mention that they contracted ME/CFS.

I hope this helps!!! Thank you for your work!

ETA: sorry I just saw that you had this reference already :ashamed:
 

gracenote

All shall be well . . .
Messages
1,537
Location
Santa Rosa, CA
I can't get the full text of this article, but this may be the one you want for these quotes:

"housemates & sexual partners of PWC may have an increased risk of CFS", "80% of PWC have no known family history of CFS"

Prevalence of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue Within Families of CFS Patients

Rosemary A Underhill ; Ruth O'Gorman
2006
Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 3-13 2006 Vol 13(1)

Summary

The prevalence of CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and chronic fatigue were investigated in family members of CFS patients using a questionnaire-based study. Significant differences were seen between the prevalence of CFS in all groups of family members relative to the published community prevalence of 0.422% (spouses/partners: 3.2%, p < 0.001; offspring: 5.1%, p < .001; parents and siblings: 1.1%, p < 0.02; second and third degree blood relatives 0.8%, p < 0.02). The prevalence of CFS was higher in genetically unrelated household contacts and in nonresident genetic relatives than in the community, indicating that both household contact and genetic relationship are risk factors for CFS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)
 

gracenote

All shall be well . . .
Messages
1,537
Location
Santa Rosa, CA
Here is the article on "death from heart failure."

Causes of Death Among Patients With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
LEONARD A. JASON, KARINA CORRADI, SARA GRESS, SARAH WILLIAMS, and SUSAN TORRES-HARDING
DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Health Care for Women International, 27:615626, 2006
Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

http://www.ncf-net.org/library/CausesOfDeath.pdf

Abstract

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating illness affecting thousands of individuals. At the present time, there are few studies that have investigated causes of death for those with this syndrome. The authors analyzed a memorial list tabulated by the National CFIDS Foundation of 166 deceased individuals who had had CFS. There were approximately three times more women than men on the list. The three most prevalent causes of death were heart failure, suicide, and cancer, which accounted for 59.6% of all deaths. The mean age of those who died from cancer and suicide was 47.8 and 39.3 years, respectively, which is considerably younger than those who died from cancer and suicide in the general population. The implications of these findings are discussed.

from Discussion

. . . When examining ages of death, we found that those dying of suicide were significantly younger than those dying of heart failure. Another intriguing finding was the overall ages of death for those dying of cancer, suicide, and heart failure. If one examines national rates of death for these conditions, the ages of death for these three conditions among the patients with CFS are considerable earlier. The median age of death for cancer in the United States is 72 (Reis et al., 2003, versus an average age of 47.8 for the CFS sample), the average age of death for suicide in the United States is 48 (Centers for Disease Control, 2003, versus an average age of 39.3 for the CFS sample), and the average age of heart failure is 83.1 (CDC, 2003, versus an average age of 58.7 years for the CFS sample). What this suggests is that those from this memorial list who did die of cancer, suicide, and heart failure were considerable younger than what would have been expected from the general population, which means that CFS might have increased the risk of death for at least this sample.
 

Dr. Yes

Shame on You
Messages
868
I'm also looking for the Jason et al 2006 paper that Maes cites in his letter to NeuroEndocrinology Letters (2009) finding that "a study published in 2006 found the average age of death from heart failure was significantly lower in CFS patients than the general US population at 59 years, versus 81". But if I can't find that paper, I'm just citing the Maes reference.

Hi Dr. Donnica,

Is this the Jason article you're looking for?

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/07399330600803766

I can only get the abstract at the above site, but hopefully you can do better! The article reference:

Jason LA, Corradi K, Gress S, Williams S, Torres-Harding S (2006). "Causes of death among patients with chronic fatigue syndrome". Health care for women international 27 (7): 615–26.

Hope that helps!

ETA - And, of course, Gracenote has rendered me redundant.
 

Hope123

Senior Member
Messages
1,266
DrDonnica, I sent you a PM with some comments and e-mails of researchers. (see notifications in your upper right hand corner)