A neuropsychological study of the chronic fatigue syndrome: Support for a deficit in memory function independent of depression

Well-controlled studies of the cognitive status of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) participants are rare. This study aimed to examine the deficit in co gnitive functioning in CFS after the effects of depression had been control led. Twenty-six CFS sufferers and twenty-six matched control participants w ere compared on the Chronic Fatigue Symptom Checklist, the illness Behaviou r Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory, Performance IQ from the WAI S-R, the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, the Controlled Oral Word Associ ation Test, and a series of measures of attention and concentration tasks i ncluding the Digit Span Test, the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test, and Simple and Choice Reaction. In these participants with a medically confirme d diagnosis of CFS, there is a high endorsement of cognitive-related items on self-report measures. There is also a significantly higher level of depr essive and hypochondriacal mentation. However, once the effects of depressi ve mentation had been partialled out, a significantly lower performance on the learning across trials or the RAVLT persisted. This indicates that a pa ttern of impairment characteristic of this group has been observed and supp orts the notion of central nervous system compromise in these participants.