Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in Adolescents A Follow-up Study

symptoms up to 8 years after illness onset in adoles-cents diagnosed as having chronic fatigue syndrome, id-iopathic chronic fatigue, and unexplained fatigue for less than 6 months, and to determine if hospital admission is associated with outcome. Design: A cohort study using questionnaire follow-up. Setting: A tertiary referral hospital. Patients: Consecutive adolescents referred for assess-ment of persistent fatigue were identified and retrospec-tively divided into 3 groups according to the diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome and idiopathic chronic fatigue. Intervention: A questionnaire was designed and ad-ministered by telephone at a mean of 4.57 years after the initial examination