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Reports of recovery in chronic fatigue syndrome may present less than meets the eye

Dolphin

Senior Member
Messages
17,567
http://medicine.stonybrookmedicine.edu/psychiatry/news/friedberg_commentary

Fred Friedberg Warns Against Overstating Recovery Results in Studies of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

commentary, Dr. Friedberg and Ms. Adamowicz pointed out that because the term “recovery” was used to refer only to recovery from the current episode, the outcomes would more accurately be described in terms of remission rather than recovery. They noted too that the definition of recovery used in the report does not include the subjects’ perceptions of their health status, particularly if they view themselves as recovered.

They concluded that because a recovery rate below 25% still leaves the majority of patients with significant symptoms and impairments, “the publicity generated by trumpeting recovery outcomes in CFS far exceeds the relatively modest results found for most patients in behavioral treatment research.”

Dr. Friedberg is an Associate Professor and Ms. Adamowicz is a Senior Research Analyst in the Department of Psychiatry at Stony Brook University. Their commentary, titled “Reports of recovery in chronic fatigue syndrome may present less than meets the eye,” was published in the August 2014 issue of Evidence Based Mental Health. It was first published on line on May 21, 2014. The recovery data from the PACE trial were reported in an article by Peter D. White, et al. published in the October 13 edition of Psychological Medicine under the title “Recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome after treatments given in the PACE trial.”
 
Messages
13,774
he outcomes would more accurately be described in terms of remission rather than recovery.

Worth remembering that when White was first talking about these results, they were labelled as figures for remission:

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?attachments/remission-gif.4104/
index.php


http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...d-releasing-data-on-recovery-from-pace.20243/
 

Tom Kindlon

Senior Member
Messages
1,734
This is a letter Adrian Baldwin and I just had published in Evidence Based Mental Health in reply.

http://ebmh.bmj.com/content/early/2014/09/19/eb-2014-101961.extract

Unfortunately it is not open access

It is about the recovery definition used in the PACE Trial.

Friedberg & Adamowicz say that the recovery criteria in the PACE Trial were similar to those used by Deale et al (2001) in an earlier CBT trial, echoing PACE Trial authors claimed. We disagree pointing out how they are different.

We then also say the use of a threshold of SF-36 PF of 60 or more to define recovery is inappropriate, including by quoting population data.