Patient mental health

The 2015 Institute of Medicine report stated that ME "is a medical—not a psychiatric or psychological—illness". Notably, pre-existing primary psychiatric disorders and somatoform disorder must be ruled out for a ME diagnosis, according to to the International Consensus Criteria.

Notable studies

 * 1994, Chronic fatigue syndrome and psychiatric diseases
 * 2009, Psychiatric comorbidity in persons with chronic fatigue syndrome identified from the Georgia population
 * 2010, Psychiatric misdiagnoses in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (Tara Lawn, Praveen Kumar, Bernice Knight, Michael Sharpe, Peter White)

CDC Study
At the CDC Grand Rounds event in February 2016 Doctor Elizabeth Unger showed the following slide summarizing preliminary, unpublished data from the CDC Multi-site Clinical Assessment of CFS on the function of the study's patient group. The red markers show normal values for healthy people. The blue boxes represent the range for study participants, with the diamonds showing the study participants' average score. The chart demonstrates near-normal mental health and emotional role functioning, but very poor physical function.



Learn more

 * 2016, CDC study finds CFS is physical, not mental