Treatment of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Systematic Review for a National Institutes of Health Pathways to Prevention Workshop

s of potentially relevant articles identified through MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Cochrane*, and other sources† (n = 6175) Medication: 9 Exercise: 7 Combination: 4 Articles excluded (n = 988) Study does not address a key question or meet inclusion criteria, but full text pulled to provide background information: 391 Wrong population: 81 Wrong intervention: 15 Wrong outcomes: 99 Wrong study design: 142 Wrong publication type: 171 Foreign language: 1 Inadequate duration: 59 Study published before 1988: 1 Systematic review not meeting requirements: 28 Final included studies (n = 71)‡ (81 publications) Full-text articles reviewed for relevance to key questions (n = 1069) Excluded abstracts and background articles (n = 5106) Diagnosis (n = 36)|| Treatment (n = 35)§ CAM: 7 CBT: 14 CAM = complementary and alternative medicine; CBT = cognitive behavioral therapy. * Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, Health Technology Assessment, National Health Sciences Economic Evaluation Database, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. † Identified from such sources as reference lists, hand searches, and suggestions by experts. ‡ Studies that provided data and contributed to the body of evidence were considered “included.” § Studies may be included in more than 1 published article, and this number indicates the number of unique studies included, representing a total of 45 publications. Studies may have provided data for more than 1 type of treatment. || Studies included for the diagnosis of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome are reported in the companion article in this issue (71). Annals of Internal Medicine www.annals.org Annals of Internal Medicine • Vol. 162 No. 12 • 16 June 2015 Downloaded From: http://annals.org/pdfaccess.ashx?url=/data/journals/aim/934140/ on 03/17/2017 A p p en di x Ta bl e 1. Su m m ar y o fT ri al s o fT he ra p ie s