ReviewJournal of health psychology2019
How have selection bias and disease misclassification undermined the validity of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome studies?
Review in Journal of health psychology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Literature Review of GP Knowledge and Understanding of ME/CFS: A Report from the Socioeconomic Working Group of the European Network on ME/CFS (EUROMENE).Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2020Pooled it
- Benchmarking large language models for cell-free RNA diagnostic biomarker discovery.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Overcoming barriers in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome research: the CureME participatory model.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- The German Multicenter Registry for ME/CFS (MECFS-R).Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Heterogeneity in Measures of Illness among Patients with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is Not Explained by Clinical Practice: A Study in Seven U.S. Specialty Clinics.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Deep phenotyping of post-infectious myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.Nature communications · 2024Article
- IgG Antibody Responses to Epstein-Barr Virus in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Their Effective Potential for Disease Diagnosis and Pathological Antigenic Mimicry.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Article
- The effect of disease misclassification on the ability to detect a gene-environment interaction: implications of the specificity of case definitions for research on Gulf War illness.BMC medical research methodology · 2023Article
- Article
- Impact of Misdiagnosis in Case-Control Studies of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Autism and chronic ill health: an observational study of symptoms and diagnoses of central sensitivity syndromes in autistic adults.Molecular autism · 2022Observational
- Altered endothelial dysfunction-related miRs in plasma from ME/CFS patients.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- A Natural History of Disease Framework for Improving the Prevention, Management, and Research on Post-viral Fatigue Syndrome and Other Forms of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.Frontiers in medicine · 2021Article
- Herpesviruses Serology Distinguishes Different Subgroups of Patients From the United Kingdom Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Biobank.Frontiers in medicine · 2021Article
- Systematic Review of the Epidemiological Burden of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Across Europe: Current Evidence and EUROMENE Research Recommendations for Epidemiology.Journal of clinical medicine · 2020Review
- How Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) Progresses: The Natural History of ME/CFS.Frontiers in neurology · 2020Article
- Review of the Quality Control Checks Performed by Current Genome-Wide and Targeted-Genome Association Studies on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2020Article
- Approaching recovery from myalgic encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome: Challenges to consider in research and practice.Journal of health psychology · 2019Article
- Cellular Immune Function in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS).Frontiers in immunology · 2019Article
- Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as a Hyper-Regulated Immune System Driven by an Interplay Between Regulatory T Cells and Chronic Human Herpesvirus Infections.Frontiers in immunology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome has been a controversial diagnosis, resulting in tensions between patients and professionals providing them with care. A major constraint limiting progress has been the lack of a 'gold standard' for diagnosis; with a number of imperfect clinical and research criteria used, each defining different, though overlapping, groups of people with myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome. We review basic epidemiological concepts to illustrate how the use of more specific and restrictive case definitions could improve research validity and drive progress in the field by reducing selection bias caused by diagnostic misclassification.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.