ArticleEuropean child & adolescent psychiatry2021
How common are depression and anxiety in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and how should we screen for these mental health co-morbidities? A clinical cohort study.
Article in European child & adolescent psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Recent research in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: an evidence map.Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Graded exercise therapy compared to activity management for paediatric chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis: pragmatic randomized controlled trial.European journal of pediatrics · 2024Trial
- Comparable Immune Alterations and Inflammatory Signatures in ME/CFS and Long COVID.Biomedicines · 2025Article
- Long-term physical health conditions and youth anxiety and depression: Is there a causal link?Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Multiple voxel pattern analysis shows associations between chronic fatigue syndrome and cortical atrophy.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Assessment of symptoms in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: a comparative study of existing scales.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Review
- A cross-sectional analysis of air pollution in primary schools and children fatigue.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- A phenomenological study on the lived experience of men with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.Journal of health psychology · 2024Article
- Depression and the risk of fibromyalgia syndrome: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Physical symptoms and brain morphology: a population neuroimaging study in 12,286 pre-adolescents.Translational psychiatry · 2023Article
- Presence of depression and anxiety with distinct patterns of pharmacological treatments before the diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome: a population-based study in Taiwan.Journal of translational medicine · 2023Article
- One-year follow-up of young people with ME/CFS following infectious mononucleosis by Epstein-Barr virus.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2023Article
- Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) in Adolescents: Practical Guidance and Management Challenges.Adolescent health, medicine and therapeutics · 2023Review
- Mental health screening in adolescents with CFS/ME.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2022Article
- A description of the current status of chronic fatigue syndrome and associated factors among university students in Wuhan, China.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Who should we ask about mental health symptoms in adolescents with CFS/ME? Parent-child agreement on the revised children's anxiety and depression scale.Clinical child psychology and psychiatry · 2021Article
- An interpretative phenomenological analysis study of perceptions around factors relating to coping amongst young people with Long Covid and mental health difficulties in the UK.Health psychology openArticle
- Dry eye symptoms and signs in United States Gulf War era veterans with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.Clinical & experimental ophthalmologyArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Adolescents with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) appear to be more likely to experience anxiety and/or depression using Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs). However, we do not know how accurate these are at detecting problems in this patient group given the primary symptom of fatigue. We aimed to accurately determine the prevalence of anxiety/depression using gold-standard diagnostic interviews and evaluate the accuracy of PROMs measuring mood disorders in this patient group. We conducted a cross-sectional epidemiological study in a specialist tertiary paediatric CFS/ME service, England. The participants were164 12-18-year olds with clinician confirmed CFS/ME and their parents. The measures were a semi-structured diagnostic interview, the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia, K-SADS, and questionnaires (Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale, RCADS; Spence Children's Anxiety Scale, SCAS; Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, HADS). Parents completed the RCADS-P. 35% met the criteria for at least one common mental health problem. 20% had major depressive disorder, and 27% an anxiety disorder, with social anxiety and generalised anxiety being the most common. There was high co-morbidity, with 61% of those who were depressed also having at least one anxiety disorder. The questionnaires were moderately accurate (AUC > 0.7) at detecting clinically significant anxiety/depression, although only the RCADS-anxiety reached the predefined 0.8 sensitivity, 0.7 specificity target. Mental health problems are particularly common amongst adolescents with CFS/ME. Most screening tools were not sufficiently accurate in detecting clinically significant anxiety and depression, so these should be used with care in combination with thorough psychological/psychiatric assessment.
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