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Prevalence of chronic fatigue syndrome in metropolitan, urban, and rural Georgia
Reeves WC, Jones JF, Maloney E, Heim C, Hoaglin DC, Boneva RS, Morrissey M, Devlin R.
Prevalence of chronic fatigue syndrome in metropolitan, urban, and rural Georgia
Population Health Metrics 5:5, 2007.
The complete electronic version of this article is available at
http:/pophealthmetrics.com/content/5/1/5*
Summary
This article summarizes results from CDC's most recent population-based study of CFS. It is the first study ever that estimated prevalence of CFS adults of all racial/ethnic groups residing in metropolitan, urban, and rural populations. This study estimates that approximately 2.5% of the adult population of metropolitan, urban, and rural Georgia suffers from CFS. This is 6- to 10-fold higher than previous estimates of CFS in Wichita and Chicago. We believe these estimates are more accurate than previous estimates because we identified unwell adults who we then evaluated for CFS and previous studies have screened the population only for fatigue and evaluated fatigued adults for CFS. We believe screening for unwellness is much more sensitive because although fatigue is central to CFS many with the illness are more bothered by problems with memory/concentration, unrefreshing sleep, and pain. This is also the first population-based study to diagnose CFS based on a complete clinical and psychiatric evaluation (to rule out exclusionary conditions) and to define disability, fatigue, and accompanying symptoms by means of standardized, internationally validated and reproducible criteria. We published the article in a free access journal; it is accessible over the internet by means of the URL noted above.
Abstract
Background: Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating illness with no known cause or effective therapy. Population-based epidemiologic data on CFS prevalence are critical to put CFS in a realistic context for public health officials and others responsible for allocating resources.
Methods: Based on a random-digit dialing survey we ascertained CFS cases and controls to estimate the prevalence of CFS in metropolitan, urban, and rural populations of Georgia. This report focuses on the 5,623 of 19,381 respondents ages 18 to 59 years old. Fatigued (2,438), randomly selected unwell not fatigued (1,429) and randomly selected well (1,756) respondents completed telephone questionnaires concerning fatigue, other symptoms, and medical history. Subsets of those identified by interview as having CFS-like illness (292), chronic unwellness which was not CFS-like (268 - randomly selected), and well subjects (223, matched to those with CFS like illness on sex, race, and age) completed a clinical evaluation.
Results: We estimated that 2.54% of persons 18 to 59 years of age suffered from CFS. There were no significant differences in prevalence of CFS between metropolitan, urban or rural populations or between white and black residents of the three regions. However, there were significant differences in female-to-male ratios of prevalence across the strata (metropolitan female: male 11.2 : 1, urban 1.7 : 1, rural 0.8 : 1).
Conclusion: We estimated that 2.54% of the Georgia population suffers from CFS, which is 6- to 10-fold higher than previous population-based estimates in other geographic areas. These differences may reflect broader screening criteria and differences in the application of the case definition. However, we cannot exclude the possibility that CFS prevalence may be higher in Georgia than other areas where it has been measured. Although the study did not identify differences in overall prevalence between metropolitan, urban, and rural Georgia populations, it did suggest the need for additional stratified analyses by geographic strata.
Page last modified: October 8, 2007
Content source: National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases (ZVED)
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