Attitudes to mental illness in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Attitudes to mental illness in Chronic fatigue syndrome compared to psoriasis
IRAS ID
141792
Contact name
Hugh Rickards
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Research summary
This research will explore attitudes to mental illness in patients with Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) compared with psoriasis patients. This is an important area to explore as research has shown beliefs about the unacceptability of experiencing or expressing negative thoughts and emotions play an important role in the development and maintenance of CFS. This could be explained by the fact that CFS patients have a more negative attitude to mental illness and seeking help for psychological problems. CFS is a serious and debilitating condition characterised by physical and mental fatigue in addition to other symptoms such as muscle pain and headaches. Despite its severity in terms of disability and its costs to society in the form of informal care and lost employment, very little is known about its cause and treatments are limited in what they can achieve. Therefore it is important that this study is carried out to improve understanding of the factors behind the condition. This study will involve adult patients of working age. Participants will be required to answer a questionnaire which explores opinions on mental illness, assesses attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help, measures depression and records demographic information. Psoriasis patients will be used a comparison group as this is a long term condition with similar rates of depression and anxiety to CFS as both these factors could affect attitude to mental illness. CFS patients will be recruited from the Barberry mental health service, psoriasis patients will be recruited from the Queen Elizabeth hospital Birmingham.
REC name
North West - Haydock Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/NW/0029
Date of REC Opinion
10 Jan 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion