Significant other responses are associated with fatigue and functional status among patients with chronic fatigue...

The predictive power of partners' responses to illness behavior for illness outcomes was investigated among couples in which one person had chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

One hundred nineteen participants who met case-definition criteria for CFS and were living with a significant other (SO) completed self-report measures of relationship satisfaction, responses of their SO to fatigue symptoms, and outcome measures of fatigue and functional status.

The results indicated that more frequent solicitous SO responses to illness behavior were predictive of greater fatigue-related severity and bodily pain. Solicitous SO responses to fatigue behavior were particularly influential in the context of a satisfactory relationship. In highly satisfactory relationships, solicitous SO responses were associated with significantly greater fatigue severity and fatigue-related disability than in relationships characterized by low or average satisfaction.

Solicitous SO responses to CFS-related symptoms are associated with poorer patient outcomes, especially in the context of a satisfactory intimate relationship. Because of the cross-sectional nature of the study, the direction of effects cannot be interpreted unambiguously. SOs may be inadvertently positively reinforcing illness-related behavior: Solicitous partners may help the patient more with tasks of daily living, thereby decreasing the patient's activity level, which may lead to deconditioning and disability. Alternatively, patients with more severe symptoms and disability may present more opportunities for concerned SO responses, which again may be heightened in the context of a caring, satisfactory relationship. In either case, the results suggest that additional research on the role of solicitous SO responses is warranted.