Depression and anxiety in adolescents with CFS

Approximately 1 to 2% of children and young people will be affected by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)/myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). CFS/ME has a significant impact on daily functioning; children and young people with CFS/ME miss an average of one year of school (Crawley et al., 2011). Published data, based predominantly on self-report questionnaires, has indicated that about 1 in 3 children and young people with CFS/ME also have probable depression (Bould et al., 2013), and at least 1 in 3 have probable anxiety (Crawley, 2009), particularly separation anxiety and social anxiety. However, due to overlapping symptomatology, it is not clear whether these individuals would meet full diagnostic criteria for anxiety and depression on a diagnostic interview.

This study will examine the prevalence of anxiety and depression in children and adolescents (N=122) age 8 to 18 (mean 15.02, S.D. 1.83) attending a specialist CFS/ME service, presenting both self-report and parent report data (N = 102 mothers and 65 fathers). It will also examine whether self-report measures are correlated with diagnoses using diagnostic interviews (MINI) in 52 children and adolescents. Clinical considerations will be discussed.