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Chronic Disabling Fatigue at Age 13 and Association With Family Adversity
Pediatrics, 07/10/2012
Crawley E et al. – Chronic disabling fatigue is more common in families who experienced early family adversity and is often not reported to health care services.
Methods- The subjects were 10001 children, of whom 5657 had sufficient data to define chronic disabling fatigue at age 13.
- hronic disabling fatigue was defined as tiredness reported by mothers that had lasted for >3 months or >6 months, was disabling (school absence or prevented participation in hobbies/sport/leisure activities “quite a lot” or a “great deal”), and not due to another cause.
- Family adversity was defined by using 14 questions addressing housing, education, social relationships, and maternal health assessed prospectively at birth.
- Overall, 1995 teenagers had been tired for the last month, of whom 117 and 53 had chronic disabling fatigue of >3 and >6 months’ duration, respectively.
- The estimated prevalence of chronic disabling fatigue of >3 and >6 months’ duration was 2.07% and 0.94%, respectively, but increased to 2.44% and 1.30%, respectively, after imputing missing data.
- Prevalence was similar in boys and girls.
- The risk of chronic disabling fatigue increased with family adversity score (odds ratios: 1.25 [95% confidence interval: 1.09, 1.43] and 1.23 [1.01, 1.51] for >3 and >6 months’ duration, respectively).