Measurements of Recovery and Predictors of Outcome in an Untreated CFS Sample (2019) Thomas et al.

Esther12 · May 16, 2019

This post and the following ones have been moved from this thread.

I was just looking at this new paper from the author:

Measurements of Recovery and Predictors of Outcome in an Untreated Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Sample

http://orca-mwe.cf.ac.uk/121864/1/ed8b62_949404b2a6cf4c39a0ee45e7caf270fd.pdf

It looks like all the analyses are post-hoc:

The topic of recovery over time was examined using the current state of health variable. People responding ‘almost completely recovered’ to this scale represented recovery. The results suggest that very few patients will completely recover over time without treatment. Levels of spontaneous recovery were only 2% at 6 months and rose to 6% at 18 months and 3 years. As the number of patients who completely recover over time was low, recovery was redefined as patients who were ‘recovering with occasional relapses’ and those who had ‘almost completely recovered’.
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These sorts of studies don't really interest me, but it could be presented as challenging findings from earlier weak studies:

There is no suggestion from these data that physical cause attribution is associated with outcome. Similarly, there is no evidence to suggest that type of illness onset (acute or gradual) affects prognosis (although the type and frequency of symptoms reported by patients with acute or gradual illness onset do differ). Furthermore, there is no evidence from these data to suggest that co-morbid anxiety or depression at baseline is associated with recovery in the longer term. Physical cause, illness onset type and co-existing psychopathology have all been cited as possible factors affecting recovery in this patient group (Cairns & Hotopf, 2005; Russo et al., 1998). The data from the current study indicates that these associations may not exist.
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Logistical regression analyses were used to highlight possible mechanisms for predicting positive outcome in terms of improvement. It had already been suggested that a wide range of psychosocial, psychopathological and health related factors are associated with prolonging CFS (Surawy, Hackman, Hawton & Sharpe, 1995). We aimed to examine the role of these factors by means of improvement in the condition. These data suggests that, despite the findings reported in previous research, only one measure, namely the current state of health variable could accurately predict positive outcome. When the analyses were re-run using the factors indicated to be predictors of outcome in previous research, again only the current state of health variable is indicated as a predictor of outcome. These data should be regarded with caution due to the large confidence intervals involved; however, the heterogeneity of CFS may explain the large differences observed. Although these data are interesting, the health status of the patient at initial assessment only exerts (at most) an 18% effect over improvement. There are, therefore, other factors, which we have not yet considered, exerting a greater effect on recovery.
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We have confirmed the widely held belief among healthcare professionals that offering care to this patient group before the illness is allowed to become entrenched is of major importance if therapy is to be successful.
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WTF? How on Earth do they think that they have confirmed this?! What embarrassing quackery.

This research was funded by the Linbury Trust and the Gatsby Foundation.
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Why do funds connected to Sainsbury seems to be funding so many crappy CFS researchers?

obeat · May 16, 2019

Perhaps Chris Ponting should apply!

Amw66 · May 16, 2019

Esther12 said: ↑

I was just looking at this new paper from the author:

Measurements of Recovery and Predictors of Outcome in an Untreated Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Sample

http://orca-mwe.cf.ac.uk/121864/1/ed8b62_949404b2a6cf4c39a0ee45e7caf270fd.pdf

It looks like all the analyses are post-hoc:

These sorts of studies don't really interest me, but it could be presented as challenging findings from earlier weak studies:

WTF? How on Earth do they think that they have confirmed this?! What embarrassing quackery.

Why do funds connected to Sainsbury seems to be funding so many crappy CFS researchers?
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Who are trustees . Interests and network may shed some light.
They also funded SMILE from memory

chrisb · May 16, 2019

Esther12 said: ↑

Why do funds connected to Sainsbury seems to be funding so many crappy CFS researchers?
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Presumably it is wholly unconnected with any events between 1998 and 2006 when David Sainsbury, as most, but perhaps not all, will know, was Science Minister.

Mithriel · May 16, 2019

"As the number of patients who completely recover over time was low, recovery was redefined as patients who were ‘recovering with occasional relapses’ and those who had ‘almost completely recovered’."

Why did they need to redefine recovery? Recovery was low so they could have looked at improvement. Changing language has not place in science.

"There were no penguins in Glasgow so we redefined sparrows as penguins so we could continue our research"

rvallee · May 16, 2019

Mithriel said: ↑

"There were no penguins in Glasgow so we redefined sparrows as penguins so we could continue our research"
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Basically this in a nutshell. Invent an ersatz version of the disease, fake a bunch of subjective research that weakly "measures" that fake definition and declare success despite all evidence showing no objective benefit.

Phrenology was genuine cutting-edge science compared to this. Complete garbage.

MEMarge · May 16, 2019

So it is a study by 2 psychologists, one of whom is from Bath.

Would we expect a useful conclusion?

Snow Leopard · May 17, 2019

Mithriel said: ↑

Why did they need to redefine recovery? Recovery was low so they could have looked at improvement. Changing language has not place in science.
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Yep....

Coincidentally, protocol defined recovery following the PACE trial was about ~5% and independent of group allocation.

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