Interventions for the management of CFS/ME

NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
Record ID 32002000386
English
Authors' objectives:

This bulletin aims to summarise the available evidence on the effectiveness interventions for the management of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)/myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).

Authors' recommendations: - Estimates of prevalence of CFS/ME in the UK range from 0.4% to 2.6%. A general practice with 10,000 patients is likely to have 30-40 patients with CFS/ME. - Seven different categories of intervention have been evaluated for their potential use in the management of CFS/ME: behavioural, immunological, antiviral, pharmacological, supplements, complementary/alternative and multi-treatment. - Interventions for which there is evidence of effectiveness from randomised controlled trials include cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET). - Bed or wheelchair restricted patients have been excluded in some of the studies and only one study included young people under 18 years of age. This raises questions about the applicability of findings to all people with CFS/ME. - Further research is needed into i) how sub-groups of patients may respond differently to treatments and ii) the potential additive or combined effects of treatments where more than one therapy is used. - The large number of outcome measures used makes standardisation of outcomes a priority for future research. - Future research needs to combine scientific rigour with patient acceptability, and good quality research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of pacing, ideally in comparison with CBT and GET.
Authors' methods: Systematic review
Details
Project Status: Completed
URL for project: http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/ehcb.htm
Year Published: 2002
English language abstract: An English language summary is available
Publication Type: Not Assigned
Country: England
MeSH Terms
  • Exercise Therapy
  • Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic
Contact
Organisation Name: University of York
Contact Address: University of York, York, Y01 5DD, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 1904 321040, Fax: +44 1904 321041,
Contact Name: crd@york.ac.uk
Contact Email: crd@york.ac.uk
Copyright: Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
This is a bibliographic record of a published health technology assessment from a member of INAHTA or other HTA producer. No evaluation of the quality of this assessment has been made for the HTA database.