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Mental Health and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Is Mental Health the Culprit Behind Your Fatigue?, 2020, Raza et al

Discussion in 'Psychosomatic research - ME/CFS and Long Covid' started by Dolphin, Sep 23, 2020.

  1. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    4,990
    Not a recommendation
    http://thebiomedicapk.com/articles/819.pdf

    ORIGINAL ARTICLE
    Mental Health and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Is Mental Health the Culprit Behind Your Fatigue?

     
  2. Arnie Pye

    Arnie Pye Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Is Mental Health the Culprit Behind Your Fatigue?

    No. Next question, please.

    - - - - -

    There are some very common reasons why people might be fatigued that would never come to the surface with just a questionnaire, or even two of them. Just a few that come to mind that might be very common in university students, particularly women :

    Iron deficiency or iron deficiency anaemia
    Nutrient deficiencies of other kinds e.g. Low vitamin B12 and/or folate, low vitamin D
    Thyroid problems
    Poor diet

    But I would guess that the people writing the above paper just assumed that people who can attend university must be healthy.
     
  3. Snowdrop

    Snowdrop Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    A link to the DASS 21 depression scale:

    https://www.depression-test.net/support-files/dass21-dmz.pdf

    and they used the Chalder Fatigue Scale (to my mind showing they're doing turkey science):

    http://www.goodmedicine.org.uk/files/assessment, chalder fatigue scale.pdf

    and an analysis of just how good it is:

    https://www.s4me.info/threads/explo...ic-fatigue-syndrome-1998-morriss-et-al.11065/

    Personally, if I can't have my wish that the likes of Nath et al do some real research my consolation prize wish would be that people stop signing up for this kind of useless study.
     
  4. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Really adding to my growing hypothesis that all along this was an experiment gone wrong into submitting joke papers to test whether they would get through the peer review process and things just got out of hand after people found themselves flush with free cash to keep going. It reads like someone trying to copy the standard Wessely-Chalder method but reading from a translation of a translation of a translation.

    This is quite frankly laughably bad and I have trouble processing the fact that these people make life and death decisions. Hell, I'm not sure they should be making decisions about anyone's lunch.
     
  5. Snowdrop

    Snowdrop Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    They seem to be referring to stress throughout the paper as in the above quote and also in the discussion section yet they call this chronic fatigue syndrome so this seems to be a tertiary issue of hearing from someone who heard from someone what cfs is.
     
  6. Trish

    Trish Moderator Staff Member

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    EzzieD, Snow Leopard, sebaaa and 7 others like this.
  7. chrisb

    chrisb Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Is that not stigmatising mental health issues, calling them a culprit? I'm appalled. Appalled.
     
  8. InitialConditions

    InitialConditions Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I believe 'Mental Health' is actually a good thing. o_O
     
  9. Snow Leopard

    Snow Leopard Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    They aren't even measuring "chronic fatigue", just "fatigue" as measured by a questionnaire.

    To measure "chronic fatigue syndrome", they have to operationalise the criteria in a meaningful way. Given that their sample is medical students, it's quite possible that none of the participants had CFS.

    The whole thing is ridiculous, it is well known that medical school requires a lot of time and effort, can be quite stressful and students can feel anxious since they desperately want to pass. This study says very little about chronic fatigue, let alone CFS.
     
    Simbindi, Mithriel, EzzieD and 12 others like this.
  10. Woolie

    Woolie Senior Member

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