Comforting factors that influence the severity of fatigue and other somatic symptoms from the perspective of CFS, 2020, Overgaauw

I've tried to read this, but it's so full of assumptions without basis, leaps of logic and nonsense I can't take it seriously.

 

They themselves had to admit that there was no association between symptoms and the so-called "factors", but they nonetheless continue to call them "factors" and talk about their "soothing influences".

 

Here's my translation of the whole thing:

'We sorted stuff patients said into obvious categories using completely unnecessary fancy stats, then, despite the fact that none of them showed any association with symptom severity, we concluded our favoured therapies would be helpful.'

 

The standard of translation of some of these alleged scientific papers appears to be as shoddy as the science. At least I’m assuming this terminology - soothing factors - is due to poor translation rather than a term that’s actually used by academics. But even as I write I’m realising I could be totally wrong. After all these people use words in the most bizarre ways.

 

Indeed. To illustrate. here's just part of one paragraph:

What evidence is there for psychological factors? The example of the evidence is that someone has suggested that CFS 'involves immune system disorders, cardiovascular abnormalities as well as central nervous system disorders'. Someone suggesting something isn't evidence. Furthermore, 'immune system disorders, cardiovascular abnormalities and central nervous system disorders' aren't evidence of 'psychological factors playing a role', at least not without further explanation.

So, in that single sentence, there are the questionable assumptions that:
1. somatoform disorders exist;
2. that somatoform disorders involve deficits in affect regulation ( the ability of an individual to modulate their emotional state in order to adaptively meet the demands of their environment);
3. somatoform disorders may have some (unspecified) overlap with CFS;
4. therefore people with CFS have deficits in affect regulation.

Having made those heroic assumptions, the author continues:
1. There are three affect regulation systems (threat, drive and soothing);
2. Fibromyalgia is the result of an over-active threat-detection system and a deficient soothing system;
3. CFS and Fibromyalgia overlap;
4. Therefore, considering these affect regulation systems will lead to better understanding and treatment of CFS;
5. This is because these affect regulation systems 'seem to modulate neural activity of somatic symptoms' - whatever that actually means.

 

So, they did a survey of 701 people with chronic symptoms according to self-report - they had all sorts of diseases. Answers from the survey produced a list of things that people found helpful for 'soothing'. There was quite a bit of manipulation of the results by the researchers e.g. if something was specific to just women or old people, it didn't make it onto the list.

Then 7 (yes!) people with CFS picked out things out of the list that they found helpful.

Somehow this supports the author's desire for us to be fixed by mindfulness and listening to music:

So, yeah. It would be laughable except people are coming out of education systems with Masters degrees for producing this kind of prejudiced waffle.

 

Thanks Michiel you made me laugh.

They would have done better to just cut out the ‘research’ and post their questions straight on here.

 

I suspect it was a study allocated to a group of Masters' degree students, with each being allocated one condition to focus on.

This poor mug got allocated the CFS subgroup which turned out to only get 7 participants and had to try to make something out of it in order to be awarded their degree.