disease that doesn’t impact our ability to function or to be productive in society or our quality of life, may be a disease that doesn’t need a lot of attention. A disease on the other hand, that significantly restricts our functioning is a disease that our society, purely from a pragmatic viewpoint, should pay a great deal of attention to. A disease that significantly impacts our quality of life is a disease that we as human beings would dread, most of all, of having.
The data for the ME/CFS part of the study came from 112 people associated with the National ME/CFS Danish Association. Except for some questions specifically targeted at ME/CFS patients, the same standardized survey was used in this survey and in a 23,000 person Danish survey. The bigger study examined the quality of life in chronic illness.
Let’s get one thing out of the way first. The big question overhanging this survey was how representative the 112 people coming from the Danish ME/CFS Association were of ME/CFS patients in general.
The demographic results indicated that with regards to age, gender, and socio-economic status the Danish patients looked much like ME/CFS patients surveyed in other countries. The authors agreed, though, that patients joining a group like the Danish Association probably tended to be less satisfied with their health care, more severely ill and more resourceful than patients not joining organizations like that.