Fatigue complaints are frequent and important problems affecting people's quality of life and creating puzzles for the General Practitioners they consult. Little is known about what actions people undertake to deal with fatigue, and even less about their success. As revealed by multivariate analyses health-related action patterns can classify people as being particularly successful or unsuccessful in dealing with their complaints of chronic fatigue. This study suggests that a few actions applied in combination and in a concentrated manner constitute the basis for a successful action pattern. The number, type and predictive power of the relevant actions vary depending on the persons in question: having chronic diseases or not and being under 44 or over 44 years old.
A computer simulation has been developed that re¯ects the microdynamics of dealing with fatigue and associated complaints. The theoretical base was derived from Leventhal, Nerenz and Steele's self-regulation model; the empirical base from a large-scale diary study carried out over a period of 3 weeks. The simulation results demonstrate that the process of self-regulation is non-linear. Consequently, some patient education assumptions are challenged: that individuals suffering from fatigue and associated complaints are likely to follow a similar trajectory, that interventions should not be started until after a 6 weeks delay, and that an intervention always produces the same results. These insights may be generalised to other health complaints that have no medical explanation. #
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