A study, by a team of researchers in the USA – including Dr Dana Brimmer who has previously published research exploring the lived experience of people with ME/CFS, has investigated the impact of an educational activity to increase understanding of paediatric ME/CFS – ME/CFS in children and adolescents, among 15 medical students, seven physician assistant students, and nine nursing students.
Before the educational activity was implemented, the students had relatively low familiarity with ME/CFS – they also had little experience of the disease in clinical settings.
Notably, following the educational activity there was a 56% increase in the number of students who categorised ME/CFS as a medical condition – rather than “both medical and psychiatric” or “a psychiatric condition or not sure”.
Results were as follows:
| ME/CFS is a: | Before activity | Following activity |
| “A medical condition” | 23% | 79% |
| Both “a medical and psychiatric condition” | 55% | 21% |
| “A psychiatric condition or not sure”. | 23% | 0% |
Additionally, following implementation of the educational activity, students reported:
- Higher self-rated ability to make a diagnosis of paediatric ME/CFS.
- Increased confidence to communicate about paediatric ME/CFS.
This small study highlights the positive impact evidence-based education relating to ME/CFS can have on student health professionals’ knowledge relating to the disease.
While these findings are unsurprising, they reinforce the need for medical schools – and related health care professional training programmes, to include up-to-date, evidence-based educational materials on ME/CFS which not only reflect the physical nature of the disease, but also consider how it can differ between groups of the population, including by age, by sex, and by ethnic group.
It was only in 2021 that Dr Nina Muirhead co-authored a paper on ‘Medical School Education on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis’ which identified that:
“Of the medical schools responding, 41% do not teach the subject at all. Data on the 59% of the medical schools that do cover ME/CFS show that education is delivered by multiple medical specialists, mostly by lectures of one-hour duration, which is not always examinable and often takes place without any exposure to patients with the disease.”
