Symptom-based clusters in people with ME/CFS: an illustration of clinical variety in a cross-sectional cohort.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a complex, heterogenous disease. It has been suggested that subgroups of people with ME/CFS exist, displaying a specific cluster of symptoms. Investigating symptom-based clusters may provide a better understanding of ME/CFS. Therefore, this study aimed to identify clusters in people with ME/CFS based on the frequency and severity of symptoms.

Methods

Members of the Dutch ME/CFS Foundation completed an online version of the DePaul Symptom Questionnaire version 2. Self-organizing maps (SOM) were used to generate symptom-based clusters using severity and frequency scores of the 79 measured symptoms. An extra dataset (n = 252) was used to assess the reproducibility of the symptom-based clusters.

Resul

SUBMITTER: Vaes AW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9921324 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature