Persistent fatigue following SARS-CoV-2 infection is common and independent of severity of initial infection July 2020 Townsend et al

Preprint

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.29.20164293v1

 

Uses Chalder fatigue scale.

here we go again.

 

Did they at least correct for the anxious/depression that would increase scores on the CFQ..?

 

There is a "Comment on this paper" button on the website.

 

One for @Tom Kindlon

 

Thanks for highlighting it to me. I think I will be cautious about criticising the researchers publicly at this stage given my work with the Irish ME/CFS Association and that we may wish to work with them at some stage (there has been very little biomedical ME/CFS research ever in the Republic of Ireland)

 

Many thanks for your very helpful feedback. Apologies if it seems as though we are proposing graded exercise for all; we mean to suggest a suite of interventions that will need to be individually tailored, rather than a blanket approach to all. Will clarify in published version.

So how do they know how to tailor interventions? Without any trials? He says he may identify a group worthy of further study and early intervention so what is the suite he prepare earlier?

Nul points I am afraid.

 

That fatigue is independent of infection severity seems unintuitive. Could this be due to inadequacies of the Chalder scale? Or is this a hint that fatigue is due to a somewhat different process than the infection, triggered by it but then continuing on its own?

Anyway I'm troubled by the observation that GET and CBT are still seen as important treatment for fatigue, including the authors of this paper. There is no good reason to think they work any better than a placebo. I also don't like the eagerness of the authors to intervene early. They appear convinced that they know how to help patients and don't seem to consider the possibility that they could cause harm by acting without having any real understanding of the problem. Making patients jump through extra hoops with the intent of helping them recover could delay or prevent their recovery.

 

On this team's overall research programme. You need to say you are a medical professional, I think, to be able to read it.

https://www.medicalindependent.ie/r...jamess-investigates-the-dynamics-of-covid-19/

 

Depression/Anxiety was based on prior diagnoses or use of antidepressant medication.

The real problem is that caseness was based on the aforementioned crap questionnaire.

Notably, 86.6% of "Fatigued" participants did not have any prior depression/anxiety diagnoses, so this a weak predictor at most.

 

Oh, come on. Be serious here or be gone.

 

There are many better tools than CFQ. None are great but this is a disappointing answer, it's pretty much the worst one. Is it really the job of patients to point out to researchers that there are other tools? Did they simply not look? Over the years from papers I have seen several in use that are much better. Ugh.

Great replies everyone, though. But really using only one and the worst one of all? I repeat myself but: ugh.

 

There are a bunch. Checklist Individual Strength, maybe? Fatigue Severity Scale? Any are better than the CFQ, I think, though all have problems.

 

I think they were already using the CFQ in their clinic and this is just a rushed study...

 

Actually, they do cite the latter...

Not sure they read it!