Comment on: 'Reports of recovery in chronic fatigue syndrome may present less than meets the eye

Dear Editor, Friedberg and Adamowicz reviewed our paper about recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) after treatment in the PACE trial.1–3 We write in order to correct some errors of fact and interpretation in their review. The authors suggest that we did not use any measures of patients’ perceptions of recovery. In fact we used the patient-rated clinical global impression change score of their overall health,4 which included those who rated their overall health as ‘much’ and "very much better", and which was one of the five criteria counting towards recovery. In their account of our paper, the reviewers omitted to mention one of the criteria for recovery we used—being ineligible for entry into the trial.2 The reviewers themselves defined recovery as a ‘full return to health’, but this does not take into account the presence of comorbid conditions,...
Source: Evidence-Based Mental Health - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Letter Source Type: research