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I think it is irrelevant to the concern I expressed whether anxiety and depression are thought of as physiological or mental health diseases. The concern I expressed was with the choice of the HADS survey tool and others. HADS has been found to over-diagnose anxiety and depression in people...

The whole personality and behavioural field is far less sophisticated that it appears from a distance. I have been shocked at how ratings of serious mental health issues are derived from often inane questions. The survey instruments are claimed to have validity, but if you look deeper, the...

Typically, symptoms such as fatigue and headaches and behaviours such as thinking about your health are taken to be evidence of somatization. I don't know what the BASC asks in order to rate a child as being a somaticiser - you have to buy the questionnaire. Perhaps you can get the relevant...

Not at all. The BASC scale has 4 sub scales, so you can just look at one or more sub scale if you want. We see that happening all the time. Researchers might use the SF-36 just collect data on physical function for example and not use the social functioning module. Have a look at the BASC...

Did you read the cortisol thread we started to answer your earlier question? It's not complete yet, but it shows that there have been many studies finding normal cortisol levels. Maybe the cortisol discussion can be continued on the cortisol thread. Cortisol levels in ME/CFS I'm interested to...

Frankly, that is even more frightening than having some aggregated finding that the cohort of young people are, on average, somaticising. So, is it possible that young people will be told that the answers the parents gave to the survey have resulted in them scoring highly as a somaticiser? Or...

But, can't you see that the scales are collecting information that is hopelessly biased by the young people's chronic health condition? I think we need you to go a bit deeper and actually look at the scales and think about the potential for bias, rather than just waving this issue away with a...

Sorry, I'm not understanding your reply. There currently doesn't seem to be any basis for believing that cortisol levels are abnormal in ME/CFS. What information are you talking about when you say 'is it real information or not'?

Shane Reti was the Health Minister, he has been replaced today. Shane Reti, a doctor, was no friend of people with ME/CFS, I've mentioned a couple of things about him before. The new Health Minister (same government) is Simeon Brown. He has a reputation for getting things done, hence his...

:) I say again, to do this work.

Well done on getting this lecturer interested in ME/CFS. I don't think she would have asked you if she didn't think that you could help the students have a meaningful research experience. Of course, you are best placed to know if you are well enough to do it, but I don't think you should be...

This sounds like a great initiative from the lecturer. If you Lidia or anyone took up the invitation, I'm sure members here would be pleased to help with resources if you made a thread for the project. Perhaps the students in the team might even want to join the discussion in the thread.

Thanks @forestglip for that very useful summary of the webinar. Regarding that Long Covid study of risk taking in a contrived setting, there are a number of explanations that make more sense than people with Long Covid having some inherent personality flaw. It could be that the people with...

And how do you answer those questions when your child is now ill? Perhaps the child was a joyful energetic social young person before becoming ill. And now they are slumped in their bed, refusing to go to school, often feeling upset and complaining about aches and pains and feeling exhausted...

I've made a thread to look more closely at the second survey there: Behaviour Assessment System for Children, BASC - a discussion It has questions that assess, among other things, somatisation and withdrawal. Chris, @MelbME, can you tell us what is your team doing to ensure that this survey is...

Behavior Assessment System for Children, Parent Rating Scales (BASC- PRS) is being used by a current study investigating omics in young people with ME/CFS. I thought it would be useful to have a closer look at it. It is a 173 item survey that parents fill out about their child. It costs over...

@MelbME, I wonder if your team has really thought carefully about why they need to do those surveys I listed above in a project that is tracking omics? If you want to track mood or cognitive ability against levels of various molecules, why not just ask the young person and their parent that...

From another thread: So half of the Dunedin study cohort (over 1000 people) would have qualified as having MDD at one of the time points that they were assessed at. Presumably, if the assessments had been annually, rather than 5 yearly, an even bigger percentage of the cohort would have...

This study of young people is using HADS Serial Paediatrics Omics Tracking in [ME] (SPOT-ME): protocol paper for a multidisciplinary, observational study..., 2024, Armstrong+ It is justified with the following: Reference 41 is White D, Leach C, Sims R, et al. Validation of the Hospital...

@MelbME, did you have any comments on the lack of evidence for cortisol being a problem in ME/CFS? I think the plain language summary rather glosses over the significant use of surveys to gather information about the psychological status of the young people in this project. We've said it...