P. Cathebras et al., CORRELATES OF SOMATIC CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS IN PRIMARY-CARE PATIENTS WITH FATIGUE, Psychotherapy and psychosomatics, 63(3-4), 1995, pp. 174-180
Researchers in the field of chronic fatigue in tertiary care found tha
t patients' somatic (e.g. viral) explanations for their condition may
lead to chronicity of symptoms. We studied the influence of a somatic
attributional bias on outcome and reported symptoms in primary care pa
tients with fatigue. We compared fatigue scores on a specific scale, a
nd number of presented symptoms, in two groups of primary care patient
s with 'functional' fatigue: 75 with a high score on the somatic subsc
ale of the Fatigue Attribution Scale (S-FAS), and 95 with a low score
on the S-FAS. At the index visit, patients with low and high scores on
the S-FAS were not different for age, sex, fatigue scores, and levels
of depressive symptoms. Patients with high scores on the S-FAS presen
ted significantly more somatic and psychological symptoms - a total of
36 symptoms for 24 patients (25.3%) in the low-score group, and a tot
al of 52 symptoms for 31 patients (41.3%) in the high-score group. For
ty-two days later, at the follow-up visit, the fatigue scores were sim
ilar in both groups. In primary care patients with fatigue not due to
somatic illnesss or major depression, the tendency to attribute fatigu
e to somatic causes is not associated with a worse outcome, but with a
higher number of reported symptoms.