General practitioners' experience of the chronic fatigue syndrome, 1991, Ho-Yen and McNamara

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1371754/

Abstract
In order to examine the prevalence of patients with symptoms fulfilling the criteria for the chronic fatigue syndrome an extensive survey was carried out of general practitioners on 10 local government lists in two health boards (91% response rate). At the same time practitioners' attitudes to the syndrome and their experience in terms of workload and the characteristics of patients affected were documented.

The majority of general practitioners (71%) accepted the existence of chronic fatigue syndrome, but 22% were undecided. The doctors reported a prevalence among their patients of 1.3 per 1000 patients (range 0.3-2.7 for the 10 areas) with a peak in the 30-44 years age group. Female patients were more commonly affected than males (sex ratio 1.8:1.0), but the severity of illness and the use of general practitioner's time was the same among male and female patients.

Patients in occupations where they were exposed to infection were affected (teachers and students, 22% of sample; hospital workers, 7%), but many patients were unskilled (8%) and skilled workers (9%). Patients suffering from the chronic fatigue syndrome appear to be a real and distinct group for general practitioners and may represent a substantial part of the workload of doctors in particular areas.

 

I've posted this paper as much for a letter that was written in response to it:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1371803/
Chronic fatigue syndrome, D.K. Arya

There are a few interesting statements, but this one stood out as illustrating how little progress has been made in the last 30 years, and the tolerance for random unevidenced treatments. Having noted that Slater and Roth had suggested that patients with chronic fatigue syndrome are 'rarely accessible to psychotherapy. They frequent the surgeries of general practitioners and are, as a rule, satisfied with the prescription of some tonic medicine or some other placebo', Arya goes on to say: