American journal of community psychology
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Am J Community Psychol · Feb 2002
Evaluating attributions for an illness based upon the name: chronic fatigue syndrome, myalgic encephalopathy and Florence Nightingale disease.
In recent years, considerable discussion has occurred about stigma surrounding the name given to an illness currently known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Although patients and medical personnel have expressed varying opinions on this issue, no studies have evaluated how beliefs about the illness change based upon the type of name used for diagnostic purposes. Proposals have been put forth to rename the illness with an eponym (a famous patient's or researcher's name) or with a less trivial sounding, more medically based type of name. ⋯ Results suggested that, across name conditions, most trainees appeared to consider the symptom complex of CFS a serious illness resulting in poor quality of life. In addition, findings indicated that the name, chronic fatigue syndrome, may be regarded less seriously than the Myalgic Encephalopathy name with respect to some important aspects of the illness. In this study, specialty of medical trainee also played a role in how the illness was perceived.