Psychosocial factors involved in memory and cognitive failures in people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome

Figures & data

Table 1 Means and standard deviations for each variable

Variable	Mean	Standard deviation	95% confidence interval
			Lower	Upper
Age	54.80	10.32	52.31	57.00
Duration of illness	16.67	9.96	14.77	19.24
Fatigue	36.70	7.47	34.99	38.16
Social support	61.15	20.52	52.26	65.39
Retrospective memory	21.79	8.56	19.90	23.70
Prospective memory	26.18	8.64	24.24	29.13
Cognitive failures	57.37	18.88	52.90	61.45
Anxiety	17.42	2.55	16.95	18.07
Depression	21.87	9.80	19.59	24.01
Self-efficacy	26.51	6.12	24.99	27.81

Table 2 Pearson’s r correlations (two-tailed) between the psychosocial and cognitive variables

	Cognitive failures	Prospective memory	Retrospective memory
Depression	0.479; P<0.001	0.358; P=0.001	0.376; P<0.001
Fatigue	0.388; P<0.001	0.298; P=0.005	0.354; P=0.001
Social support	0.030; P=0.791	−0.062; P=0.566	−0.042; P=0.703
General self-efficacy	−0.385; P<0.001	−0.277; P=0.009	−0.320; P=0.003
Anxiety	−0.225; P=0.043	−0.187; P=0.088	−0.259; P=0.018

Table 3 Pearson’s r correlations between the psychosocial variables

	Fatigue	General self-efficacy	Anxiety
Depression	0.436; P<0.001	−0.456; P<0.001	−0.551; P<0.001
Fatigue		−0.138; P=0.101	−0.219; P=0.023
General self-efficacy			−0.350; P=0.001

Table 4 Criterion variable = prospective memory. A two-step multiple regression analysis (N=81)

Model	Unstandardized coefficients (beta)	Standardized coefficients (beta)	t	P-value	95% confidence interval
					Lower	Upper
1. Constant	6.687		5.002	<0.001	4.03	9.35
Retrospective memory	0.892	0.868	15.536	<0.001	0.78	1.01
2. Constant	2.252		0.383	0.703	−9.46	13.96
Retrospective memory	0.893	0.869	13.570	<0.001	0.76	1.03
Fatigue	−0.065	−0.054	−0.824	0.413	0.22	0.09
General self-efficacy	0.010	0.007	0.105	0.916	−0.17	0.19
Depression	0.090	0.101	1.272	0.207	−0.05	0.23
Anxiety	0.261	0.074	1.088	0.280	−0.22	0.74

Notes: Step 1 accounts for 75% of the variance; step 2 accounts for a further 6% (adjusted R² squares).

Table 5 Retrospective memory: standard multiple regression (N=81)

Model	Unstandardized coefficients (beta)	Standardized coefficients (beta)	t	P-value	95% confidence interval
					Lower	Upper
Constant	15.766	–	1.564	0.122	−4.31	35.84
Fatigue	0.298	0.255	2.221	0.029	0.03	0.57
General self-efficacy	−0.277	−0.203	−1.756	0.083	−0.59	0.04
Depression	0.138	0.159	1.127	0.263	−0.11	0.38
Anxiety	−0.038	−0.011	−0.091	0.927	0.87	0.80

Note: This model accounts for 22% of the variance (adjusted R²).

Table 6 Cognitive failures: standard multiple regression (N=80)

Model	Unstandardized coefficients (beta)	Standardized coefficients (beta)	t	P-value	95% confidence interval
					Lower	Upper
Constant	13.312	–	1.463	0.148	−11.33	73.95
Fatigue	0.579	0.220	2.030	0.046	0.01	1.147
General self-efficacy	−0.727	−0.240	−2.187	0.032	−1.39	−0.07
Depression	0.601	0.311	2.328	0.023	0.087	1.12
Anxiety	0.618	0.081	0.701	0.485	−1.14	2.37

Note: This model accounts for 27.4% of the variance (adjusted R²).

Figure 1 Path diagram: fatigue, depression, general self-efficacy and their relationship to cognitive failures.