Reeves criteria

From MEpedia, a crowd-sourced encyclopedia of ME and CFS science and history

The Reeves criteria were proposed in a 2005 article in BMC Medicine.[1] It is sometimes referred to as the Empirical definition.

Authors[edit | edit source]

William Reeves, Dieter Wagner, Rosane Nisenbaum, James Jones, Brian Gurbaxani, Laura Solomon, Dimitris Papanicolaou, Elizabeth Unger, Suzanne Vernon and Christine Heim[1]

Definition[edit | edit source]

  • Having greater than or equal to 4 symptoms set forth in the 1994 Fukuda criteria.
  • Severe fatigue as determined using the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI): score of greater than or equal to 13 on the general fatigue subscale or greater than or equal to 10 on the reduced activity subscale.
  • Functional impairment as determined using the Short-Form 36 (SF-36): score of less than or equal to 70 physical function subscale, or less than or equal to 50 on role physical subscale, or less than or equal to 75 on social function subscale, or less than or equal to 66.7 on emotional subscale.

Criticism[edit | edit source]

  • One research study found 38% of those with a diagnosis of a Major depressive disorder were misclassified as having CFS using the empirical/Reeves definition.[3]

Petition[edit | edit source]

Petition with over 2600 signatures (as of February 2016) against the criteria. [5]

Publications[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]