Psychology & Health: Perfectionism and beliefs about emotions in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome and their parents (2019) Chalder et al.

Please spare us

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1101904142702968832

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1101858257390440448


https://twitter.com/user/status/1101858836850323456

 

Let's see: it is possible, it may be, may have, could be.

This is more speculative than astrology and of equal scientific value. I have second-degree cringe from the incompetence on display. Campfire drunks regularly manage more serious and meaningful discussion than this. It's completely reckless to allow this to be the standard of discourse for a disease as disabling as MS, something they don't even deny. Complete lunacy.

 

They're talking about beliefs as if it's something that can be measured in any standardized way. Who gives approval for nonsense like this? You can't measure "unhelpful beliefs" any more than you can measure chakra energy, vitality or whatever marketing terms used by alternative medicine. This is more bullshity than all the "toxins" talk used by proponents of purge diets.

What's next? Demonic possessions? Fairy blessings? Dragon energy? Might as well while they're wading deep in gobbledygook.

 

How many times do null results have to be spun as something else? ( and who on earth peer reviewed this)
How much money was spent on this study?
Sadly, combined with the recent safeguarding seminar this research is all heading on one direction. Where is Maya Duesberry ( apologies if spelling is wrong ) when you need her?

 

There's a whole trash bag of literature on perfectionism as relating to RA, IBS, depression etc.
It's honestly embarrassing.

Reading this grade school level thinking feels like being a starving person watching a grocery store throw out loads of perfectly good food. Surely money given out for this crap could find better use elsewhere.

And I have a question for anyone in the know. Are peer reviewers names supposed to be kept secret?

 

I think one gets the best overview of this paper by looking at the tables for double ** which indicates statistical significance (in this case p<0.01).

In the adolescent CFS patients, they tested 7 outcomes: seven subscales on questionnaires about perfectionism and beliefs about emotions. Only one showed a significant difference: CFS patients showed LOWER scores on parental representations than healthy controls and asthma patients. This means CFS patients gave lower scores to questions like: "My parents have expected excellence from me" or " I never felt like I could meet my parents' standards." The other 6 outcomes showed null results.

For the parents, 9 outcomes were tested, both for the father and the mother, so that makes 18 outcomes. Only one showed a significant difference: the father (but not the mother) of CFS patients showed LOWER scores on parental representations than parents of healthy controls and asthma patients. The other 17 outcomes showed null results.

Then they tested whether one of the 7 outcomes predicted fatigue and physical function of the adolescent patients at follow-up, three months later. None of these did, neither for fatigue or physical function (that's 14 times: no significant results were found).

So those were the findings. 37 of the 39 tested outcomes showed null results, on the other two CFS patients and their fathers showed fewer signs of perfectionism.

 

It's laughable to claim p-values from a subjective questionnaire. It's like giving triple-floating point precision on a guesstimate. Forced precision like this is a big tell that angels dancing on a hairpin are being discussed.

This whole disease personality stuff is no more scientific than this joke self-help program from a movie:


Whoever funded this garbage need to stop huffing glue and get a freaking grip on reality. This is blatant waste of funds in an area of research that is deliberately starved of even minimal funds. What a cruel joke.

 

The funders, which are probably the taxpayers, are being defrauded.

 

Oh no, no, no, no, no! It saves us taxpayers from having to pay Universal Credit to the researchers when they lose their well payed jobs! After all without these professorships and research money to continue their research they'd be indigent.

 

I take it these researchers asked the adolescents what their parents' expectations of them are. Good choice to pick teens, as everyone knows this is a difficult age. What teen and parent relationship isn't a little, or a lot itchy scratchy? It seems to me this PS study is also biased because parents and teens often have conflicts - it's the nature of the beast.

Ask a teen how their parents treat them, and you may often get negative answers. Hey presto: mothers are a pain, demanding, perfectionistic etc.

 

A research topic in there. Query teens of BS researchers to find out . . . pretty much anything we like.

 

Psychology departments in universities are very large and presumably bring in a lot of money. The studies are dirt cheap, you just need paper,pen and photocopies. Very different from the expense of a science laboratory.

 

Good point. Publish or perish. Universities can apparently churn these things out - on the surface it looks good, as the wheel just keeps on turning. Looking busy must be good!?

 

Exactly!

 

It’s one of the reasons I think it’s important for the ME/CFS community to try to raise money for biomedical research: there is likely to continue to be a number of cheap studies like these. And particularly when there are large gaps in the biomedical science, there will be psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. who will indulge in psychological speculation.