Study comparing Anorexia Nervosa, CFS and healthy controls! -Trudie Chalder an author

[Dolphin]

It's from ages ago! I wonder if the reviewers asked for some extra work? Having an MS (or similar) control group would be an obvious improvement.

edit: Or is it not unusual to have this sort of delay?

It certainly is unusual. But 6 months from epub to print edition isn't that unusual (I think it happened with a couple of my letters) so still within the range of possible. There could be a logical explanation e.g. the journal has decided to do a themed edition on CFS (or anorexia or something that is somehow related to the paper) perhaps?

On some journal sites, they have a separate section for "pre-publication articles" (not sure that is the exact wording for any of them but that sort of idea). I think very occasionally I have seen an article that was over 12 months there (they are often sorted by date) and I have wondered why it was taking so long.

 

[Snow Leopard]

Interestingly, after controlling for age, anxiety, and depression, our measure of fatigue did not correlate significantly with any of the emotion processing variables.

There was also a trend for CFS participants to report more maladaptive beliefs than HCs, and with greater numbers of participants this difference may have reached significance.

(P=0.07)
Around 78% of the CFS/HC groups were women and about 93% for the AN group.

The paper then goes on to mention cognitiveemotionalbehavioural therapy, but I don't see how it is justified for CFS given the above result.

The study concludes with:

Future research might also consider exploring comparisons between AN, CFS, and other clinical conditions in order to clarify the specifity of the observed emotional processing difficulties in these groups. It might be particularly interesting to examine comparisons with people experiencing mood and anxiety disorders, and a physical illness group such as fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis. The role of comorbid depression and anxiety in influencing emotional processing has been highlighted by the current study and it has demonstrated the importance of taking these variables into account when researching emotional processing.

Note the language used... (oh and there is a typo too, LOL)

 

[Esther12]

Thanks a lot SL. Do you think the paper's worth reading? Your write made it sound like a lot of empty waffling, so maybe it's one I could skip?

 

[Snow Leopard]

I would choose to skip it.

 

[Esther12]

Then you deserve an extra thanks for saving me even more trouble. It might be one I come back to for fun later.

One worry is that these papers which seem so poor and pointless to us now can still end up being referenced by Chalder, etc for the next twenty years to support whatever point they choose to make.

 

[Dolphin]

One worry is that these papers which seem so poor and pointless to us now can still end up being referenced by Chalder, etc for the next twenty years to support whatever point they choose to make.

Yes, that happens a lot in the area.

 

[oceanblue]

I only had a quick look at the full paper and it seems that - apart from not having an appropriate control as E12 mentioned, the effects relative to the healthy control wasn't that big - certainly not enough to explain why one group was healthy and the other had severe disabling fatigue. Seems like yet more evidence that even on the most optimistic reading (of the data), psychological factors are a hopelessly inadequate explanation of ME.

Er, so I think I'm agreeing with everyones's comments here.

 

[Dolphin]

It certainly is unusual. But 6 months from epub to print edition isn't that unusual (I think it happened with a couple of my letters) so still within the range of possible. There could be a logical explanation e.g. the journal has decided to do a themed edition on CFS (or anorexia or something that is somehow related to the paper) perhaps?

On some journal sites, they have a separate section for "pre-publication articles" (not sure that is the exact wording for any of them but that sort of idea). I think very occasionally I have seen an article that was over 12 months there (they are often sorted by date) and I have wondered why it was taking so long.

It is finally going to be in a print edition/already in one:

Emotional expression, self-silencing, and distress tolerance in anorexia nervosa and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Hambrook D, Oldershaw A, Rimes K, Schmidt U, Tchanturia K, Treasure J, Richards S, Chalder T.
Br J Clin Psychol. 2011 Sep;50(3):310-25. doi: 10.1348/014466510X519215. Epub 2011 Mar 8.
PMID: 21810109 [PubMed - in process]

 

[Enid]

Interesting following you through here - medals all round for having to look at zombie science !

 

[mapanoy]

I agree.

Good point.

I totally agree.