tailieunhanh - Health and Quality of Life Outcomes BioMed Central Editorial Open Access Chronic fatigue and

Health and Quality of Life Outcomes BioMed Central Editorial Open Access Chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome in the general population Gijs Bleijenberg* Address: Expert Centre for Chronic Fatigue, University Medical Centre Nijmegen, . Box 9101, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands Email: Gijs Bleijenberg* - * Corresponding author Published: 06 October 2003 Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2003, 1:52 This article is available from: Received: 01 October 2003 Accepted: 06 October 2003 © 2003 Bleijenberg; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along. | BioMed Central Health and Quality of Life Outcomes Editorial Open Access Chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome in the general population Gijs Bleijenberg Address Expert Centre for Chronic Fatigue University Medical Centre Nijmegen . Box 9101 6500 HB Nijmegen The Netherlands Email Gijs Bleijenberg - Corresponding author Published 06 October 2003 Received 01 October 2003 Accepted 06 October 2003 Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2003 1 52 r This article is available from http content l l 52 2003 Bleijenberg licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose provided this notice is preserved along with the article s original URL. Introduction Both chronic fatigue CF connected to a chronic or serious disease and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome CFS form a serious problem in our Western society. It causes a lot of suffering for patients and may lead to disability to work. Doctors are frequently confronted with these patients but it is unknown how many of these patients are suffering without help-seeking. Most research has been done in CFS and in specialised CFS clinics. Much less is known about other types of chronic fatigue connected with a serious disabling disease or with a psychiatric condition. There is hardly any knowledge about the prevalence and characteristics of these types of chronic fatigue and especially CFS and the course of CFS in the general population. If we would know more about fatigue and chronic fatigue in the general population then for example the development of prevention programs would become nearer. Both studies published in this Journal 1 2 give a lot of interesting information about CF and CFS and the course of CFS in the general population. It is interesting to look at the differences between these studies and the data found in studies with referred CFS patients and looking at the course of CFS