The effect of Multi Convergent Therapy on the psychopathology, mood and performance of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients: A preliminary study

Abstract

Objectives: Multi Convergent Therapy combines approaches such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Graded Exercise Therapy in an holistic treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Initial follow-up data showed that patients were benefiting from this individualised form of therapy. The objective of the present study was to evaluate this Multi Convergent approach, developed at a specialised Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Outpatient clinic in Cardiff, and compare it to Relaxation Therapy and control groups using multiple outcome measures.

Design: Thirty-five participants fitting the Centre for Disease Control criteria for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome were recruited from two outpatient clinics and members of our existing patient panel. Patients were assigned to Multi Convergent Therapy (N=12), Relaxation Therapy (N=14) or recruited as controls (N=9).

Methods: Each patient completed a battery of mood and performance tasks along with comprehensive set of questionnaires at baseline, post-treatment and at six-month follow-up. These measures had been validated in previous studies on untreated patients and matched healthy controls.

Results: Patients attending the Multi Convergent Therapy clinic showed statistically significant improvements in many of our measures. Most importantly we have produced data indicating that Multi Convergent Therapy provides improvements in objective measures of psychomotor performance and cognition.

Discussion: The outcomes of this small study are encouraging. Multi Convergent Therapy has not only produced results indicating significant improvements in standardised questionnaire based measures but also in objective cognitive performance tasks. The next step would be to assess Multi Convergent Therapy at the primary medical care level, with a greater number of patients to further evaluate its efficacy as a treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Keywords:

• Multi Convergent Therapy
• relaxation therapy
• graded exercise therapy
• cognitive behaviour therapy
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

The research discussed in this paper was supported by the Gatsby Foundation. We would like to thank Dr M. B. Llewelyn for his guidance and allowing us access to his clinic.