← All reviews

3 reviews

• 4.5/ 10Fails

  The DePaul Symptom Questionnaire-2: A Validation Study

  Bedree H, Sunnquist M, Jason LA · Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health & Behavior · 2019

  A sensible revision of a patient questionnaire, honestly described, but with no comparison group, no reference diagnosis and no repeat testing it cannot show the validity and reliability its title and conclusion claim.

  No comparison group or reference diagnosisMore people meeting criteria is built into the designSplitting two-in-one questions shows clear differences
• 5/ 10Borderline

  A prospective observational study of post-COVID-19 chronic fatigue syndrome following the first pandemic wave in Germany and biomarkers associated with symptom severity

  Kedor C, Freitag H, Meyer-Arndt L, et al. · Nature Communications · 2022

  Careful early evidence that some people meet strict ME/CFS criteria after mild COVID-19, but the headline blood-marker links to grip strength appear to pool men and women, and most weaken or vanish in women alone.

  Self-referred patients; cannot show how commonNo healthy or recovered controls measuredStrict criteria, with a real medical work-up
• 3.5/ 10Fails

  Effect of subcutaneous lidocaine–hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin on quality of life in patients with post-COVID condition

  Oostwouder CJ, Vos K, Lutke Schipholt IJ, et al. · eClinicalMedicine · 2024

  No control group, no blinding and only subjective outcomes, so the reported improvement cannot be separated from placebo, regression to the mean or natural recovery.

  No control groupCompletely unblindedSample size adequate for the design