Prevalence of Chronic Fatigue and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in Korea: Community-Based Primary Care Study

Abstract

There have been many epidemiological and clinical researches on chronic fatigue (CF) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) since the 1990s, but such studies have been quite limited in Korea. The aim of this study was to investigate the point prevalence of CF and CFS in patients who visited community-based eight primary care clinics in Korea. The study subjects were 1,648 patients aged 18 yr and over who visited one of eight primary care clinics in Korea between the 7th and 17th of May 2001. The physicians determined the status of the subjects through fatigue-related questionnaires, medical history, physical examination, and laboratory tests. The subjects were categorized into no fatigue, prolonged fatigue, CF and then CF were further classified to medically explained CF (Physical CF and Psychological CF) and medically unexplained CF (CFS and idiopathic chronic fatigue). The point prevalence of CF and CFS were 8.4% (95% CI 7.1-9.7%) and 0.6% (95% CI 0.2-1.0%). Medically explained CF was 80.5% of CF, of which 57.1% had psychological causes. The clinical characteristics of CFS were distinguished from explained CF. CF was common but CFS was rare in community-based primary care settings in Korea.

Demographic and clinical aspects of an Italian patient population with chronic fatigue syndrome

“…The demographic characteristics are summarized in Table I. We observed a bias towards female sex (3:1 ratio) in agreement with international literature (7)(8)(9)(10)(11). Patients' occupation is evenly distributed and dominated by employees and housewives, whereas teachers and healthcare professionals come in third position.…”

The relationship between chronic fatigue and somatization syndrome: A general population survey

“…Prevalence rates of CF suggest that the syndrome is important especially in clinical settings [1][2][3] but also in the general population [4][5][6][7][8][9].…”

Mechanism of Mitochondrial Dysfunction during Chronic Fatigue

“…Even though fatigue decreases the quality of life in people there are only few pharmacological drugs or therapies available for the treatment of fatigue [1,[16][17][18]79]. Vitamins, minerals, and other metabolites supplementation may be a target Therapies for treatment of mitochondrial dysfunction and fatigue since they are necessary cofactors for the synthesis and function of mitochondrial enzymes and other compounds that support mitochondrial function [30,38,68,80,81].…”

“…Fatigue is a common symptom in the community, with up to half of the general population reporting fatigue in large surveys [13,14]. Worldwide nearly 10% of the general population suffered due to fatigue [15][16][17][18]. It also is reported by at least 20% of patients seeking medical care [19,20].…”