Abstract
Objectives:
To determine the prevalence of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in school children.
To explore their Special Educational Needs (SEN) arrangements.
To evaluate the views of their parents, the educational and medical professionals involved in the process of special education needs assessment.
Design: A postal questionnaire survey.
Setting: The Merton and Sutton Junior and High Schools.
Subjects: Pupils diagnosed with CFS.
Main Outcome Measures: Responses to CFS about special educational needs and case details.
Results: With a 53.8% return rate, 22 cases were idenlilled giving an overall point prevalence of 0.07%. Of these 22 cases, 21 were in Sutton and one in Merton. There were equal numbers of boys and girls.
Although the respondent groups generally agreed about Special Educational Needs arrangements, differences existed on home tuition and physical education (PE) at school. Parents were more against PE, 5 (71%) vs. 2 (14%) and 4 (11%) of doctors and educational staff, respectively (P = 0.001). Four out of seven parents (57%) said home tuition was necessary, while only one doctor (7%) and nine educational staffs (25.7%) agreed with this (P = 0.044).
Conclusion: The estimated overall prevalence is consistent with previous paediatric studies. Two different findings, however, emerged. The equal prevalence in boys and girls (in contrast to previous studies) and the highly significant difference of case numbers between these two neighbouring boroughs (21 vs. 1). Further research is needed for possible explanation of these differences.