Trial Report Validity and diagnostic overlap of functional somatic syndrome diagnoses, 2024, Rosmalen

Monica L. van der Meulen, Martje Bos, Stephan J.L. Bakker, Reinold O.B. Gans, Judith G.M. Rosmalen,

Validity and diagnostic overlap of functional somatic syndrome diagnoses,

Journal of Psychosomatic Research,
2024, 111673,
ISSN 0022-3999,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2024.111673.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399924000850)

Abstract:

Objective
We present the first study that investigates the validity and the diagnostic overlap of the three main functional somatic syndrome (FSS) diagnoses, i.e. chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), irrespective of help-seeking behaviour or diagnostic habits, and irrespective of differences in diagnostic thresholds for chronicity or symptom interference.

Methods

This cross-sectional analysis was performed in 89,781 participants of the general-population cohort Lifelines. Diagnostic criteria for CFS (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), FM (American College of Rheumatology) and IBS (Rome IV) were assessed by questionnaire. Additional items were added to enable studying the effects of differences in thresholds for minimum symptom chronicity (varying from three for FM to six months for CFS and IBS), and symptom interference (required for CFS but not for FM and IBS).

Results

The diagnostic criteria were met by 3.1% for CFS, 6.6% for FM, and 5.5% for IBS participants. The number of participants that met criteria for all three diagnoses was 45 times higher than what would have been expected based on chance. After alignment of the chronicity and symptom interference criteria to circumvent differences in diagnostic thresholds, the overlap between diagnoses increased to 152 times. Furthermore, there was a similar pattern of symptom occurrence, particularly for those fulfilling diagnostic criteria for CFS and FM.

Conclusion

The diagnostic overlap of different FSS was much higher than would be expected by chance, and substantially increased when FSS were more chronic and serious in nature.

Keywords: Chronic fatigue syndrome; Diagnoses; Diagnostic overlap; Fibromyalgia; Irritable bowel syndrome


Highlights

• Diagnostic overlap of functional somatic syndromes was higher than expected by chance.
  
  
• Overlap increased when functional somatic syndromes were more chronic and severe.
  
  
• Participants with a specific syndrome often reported symptoms of other syndromes.

 

I live close to Groningen, Rosmalen-city. But I'm really glad I'm not in Lifelines.
I was given the all clear by a psychologist; in Lifelines I would have had FND, FSD and FBOPD, that's a new one; Functional Beware Of Psychologists Disorder.

Decades ago I even did a psychotherapy training, I'm not a therapist. It was Client Centered Therapy based on Carl Rogers. A talking therapy, not a talking to therapy.
Carl Rogers introduced the open communicative posture. And empathy. The last must have been lost in translation, somewhere, and everywhere.
Now: Psychologist:'I don't care what's wrong with you. It is F..D because I say so.'

 

Such a bizarre waste of resources. Despite the title, this study has nothing to do with validity. They have no means to validate their imaginary conversion disorder. I don't know who decided that there are 3 "main" FSS diagnoses, but I don't think that's a thing. Peptic ulcers used to be the main psychosomatic disorder and is no longer because research took it out of the quacks' hands. All of this is just arbitrary nonsense.

It's the least surprising thing in the world that people who report many symptoms... have many symptoms. The exact same problem is happening in Long Covid, trying to tease out "clusters" of symptoms, but finding significant overlaps, and that doesn't even account for how symptoms often begin and end over time, people moving in and out depending on who knows what, which is the whole challenge here.

This research is as useless as it gets. They invented psychosomatic versions of chronic illnesses they don't believe in and have no treatments, that more often than not are determined based on some arbitrary decision about "main symptoms" at a certain point in time, and found exactly what was expected since this is what the patients have long reported. This is what happens when they choose to ignore what patients are reporting and refuse to pay attention to symptoms, the only relevant thing here.

It's often said, by weird people, that pain is not a feature of ME/CFS. It's literally in the first damn word of it. Digestive issues are a very common problem in both ME/CFS and fibromyalgia, it's widely reported. So of freaking course it overlaps with IBS. Good grief this ideology is so mediocre. I so distinctly remember Peter White arguing for the 2007 NICE guidelines that as far as he knew, digestive issues aren't significant in ME/CFS. This ideology is just pure incompetence and bigotry rolled into a giant nightmare.

What a bunch of useless quackery. These people contribute nothing to anyone and only make life much worse for millions. And they're proud of it.

 

They found a prevalence of 3.1% for CFS (Fukuda-criteria) which is abnormally high. I think this could be the reason:

"the FSS diagnosis was based on the responses to a questionnaire, without an assessment by a physician. The large sample size required for the current study implied that it was not feasible to determine whether participants met the diagnostic criteria for FSS based on clinical examinations."
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GIGO