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The British Journal of Psychiatry (2002) 180: 29-34
© 2002 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

Chronic fatigue and anxiety/depression: a twin study

PETER ROY-BYRNE, MD and NILOOFAR AFARI, PhD

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

SUZANNE ASHTON, BS

Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

MARY FISCHER, MS and JACK GOLDBERG, PhD

Epidemiology-Biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Vietnam Era Twin Registry, Hines, Illinois, USA

DEDRA BUCHWALD, MD

Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

Correspondence: Dr D. Buchwald, Harborview Medical Center, 325 Ninth Avenue, Box 359780, Seattle, WA 98104, USA. Tel: 1 206 731 8218; Fax: + 1 206 731 8247; e-mail: dedra{at}u.washington.edu

Declaration of interest None. Funding detailed in Acknowledgements.

Background Up to three-quarters of patients with fatigue syndromes have comorbid mood or anxiety disorders, suggesting that chronic fatigue is a forme fruste of anxiety or depressive states.

Aims To establish whether the association of chronic fatigue with psychological distress is causal or due to a common genetic or environmental factor.

Method 69 monozygotic (MZ) and 31 dizygotic (DZ) female twin pairs, with only one co-twin reporting at least 6 months of fatigue, completed questions on fatigue, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and a structured psychiatric interview. We examined the effects of three progressively more stringent definitions of chronic fatigue on four GHQ sub-scales.

Results Fatigued MZ and DZ twins by all definitions were significantly more depressed, anxious, somatically preoccupied and socially dysfunctional than their non-fatigued co-twins. Intrapair differences were similar in DZ and MZ twins, but non-significant differences were observed for the somatic symptoms and anxiety/insomnia sub-scales.

Conclusions In this sample, chronic fatigue and psychological distress are strongly associated without evidence for genetic covariation, implying that the association is environmental, or due to overlapping definitions. Any genetic covariation missed is likely to involve anxiety rather than depression.


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