Depression in Paediatric Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Depression in Paediatric Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME)
IRAS ID
203495
Contact name
Esther Crawley
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
2610
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 3 months, 26 days
Research summary
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) affects approximately 1 - 2 teenagers in every 100. It interferes significantly with their day-to-day lives. For example, on average, children and young people with CFS/ME miss one year of school. We think that about 1 in 3 children and young people with CFS/ME also have depression. Those with depression seem to be more disabled, experience more pain, and don’t seem to recover as well from CFS/ME.
My research aims to improve the recognition of teenagers who have both CFS/ME and depression. It will result in us knowing how to identify depression and who is most at risk of getting depression.
To find out how many teenagers with CFS/ME actually have depression and how best to identify them, I will recruit teenagers with CFS/ME after their first appointment with the specialist paediatric CFS/ME service in Bath. Teenagers with CFS/ME will be interviewed to assess depression, and asked them to fill in two short questionnaires about symptoms of depression. They can choose to be interviewed by Skype or face-to-face, at home or at the hospital. I will analyse how good the questionnaires are at picking up depression in these patients so that we know which questionnaire is best to use. I will also ask the young people to complete the questionnaires again 6 months after their interview.
REC name
South West - Frenchay Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/SW/0136
Date of REC Opinion
1 Jul 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion