Ramakers, Indra, Fonteyne, Riet, Walentynowicz, Marta et al. · Health psychology report · 2025 · DOI
Researchers created and tested a short questionnaire (NCP-q) that measures how much people need to feel in control and be able to predict what will happen. When they compared patients with various illnesses—including ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, panic disorder, and burnout—to healthy people, all patient groups scored higher on this questionnaire, suggesting that needing control and predictability might be a common feature across different conditions that cause physical symptoms.
This study suggests that the psychological need for control and predictability may be a shared underlying feature across ME/CFS and other medically unexplained symptom syndromes. Understanding this mechanism could help researchers and clinicians develop more targeted psychological interventions and identify why certain personality traits or coping styles are common in ME/CFS populations.
This study does not establish whether the increased need for control and predictability causes ME/CFS or other conditions, or is simply a result of having an unpredictable illness. The cross-sectional design and reliance on convenience samples cannot determine temporal relationships or whether this trait predates symptom onset. Additionally, finding a common trait does not mean all patient groups require identical treatment approaches.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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