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An epidemiologic study of fatigue with relevance for the chronic fatigue syndrome
Fukuda K, Dobbins JG, Wilson LJ, Dunn RA, Wilcox K, Smallwood D.An epidemiologic study of fatigue with relevance for the chronic fatigue syndrome.
Journal of Psychiatric Research, vol. 31, pages 19-29, 1997.
Summary
In response to a request from the State of Michigan, CDC investigated a possible cluster of CFS illness in Huron County, Michigan in the fall of 1992. Because of the inherent difficulties of systematically ascertaining and classifying CFS cases in large epidemiologic studies, a questionnaire was provided to 1698 households in four rural Michigan communities. This questionnaire was designed to provide information about self-reported fatiguing illness. The communities of Pigeon and Caseville were both included as test sites in the survey, because their involvement in a cluster of fatiguing illness was suggested by interviews with patients and physicians. The communities of Elkton and Ubly were chosen as comparison (control) communities because they were believed to be excluded from the suspected cluster of fatiguing illness. While there were some limitations to this study (e.g. 38% of households did not respond to the questionnaire, the data were self-reported and as such not verified, and the selection of respondents was biased toward adults) overall it was not possible to verify a community-wide cluster of fatiguing illness cases.
Abstract
We surveyed households in four rural Michigan communities to confirm a reported cluster of cases resembling chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and to study the epidemiology of fatigue in a rural area. Data were collected from 1698 households. We did not confirm the reported cluster. The prevalence of households containing at least one fatigued person was similar between communities thought to harbor the cluster and communities selected for comparison. Symptoms and features of generic forms of fatigue were very similar to those often attributed to CFS.
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