TY - JOUR

T1 - The international collaborative on fatigue following infection (COFFI)

AU - Katz, Ben

AU - Collin, Simon

AU - Murphy, Gabrielle

AU - Moss-Morris, Rona

AU - Bruun Wyller, Vegard

AU - Wensaas, Knut-Arne

AU - Hautvast, Jeannine

AU - Bleeker-Rovers, Chantal

AU - Vollmer-Conna, Ute

AU - Buchwald, Dedra

AU - Taylor, Renée

AU - Little, Paul

AU - Crawley, Esther

AU - White, Peter

AU - Lloyd, Andrew

PY - 2018/1/19

Y1 - 2018/1/19

N2 - Background: The purpose of COFFI is for investigators of post-infection fatigue (PIF) and other syndromes to collaborate on these enigmatic and poorly understood conditions by studying relatively homogeneous populations with known infectious triggers, and pooling data and stored biosamples to support both epidemiological and laboratory research, to better understand the etiology and risk factors for development and progression of PIF. Methods: COFFI consists of prospective cohorts from the UK, Netherlands, Norway, USA, New Zealand and Australia, some closed and some open to recruitment. The 9 cohorts closed to recruitment include > 3,000 participants, including nearly 1000 with infectious mononucleosis (IM), > 500 with Q fever, > 800 with giardiasis, > 600 with campylobacter gastroenteritis (CG), 190 with Legionnaires disease and 60 with Ross River virus. Follow-up has been at least 6 months and up to 10 years. All studies are prospective and use the CDC Fukuda criteria for defining CFS. Results: Risk factors for nonrecovery included lower physical fitness, female gender, severity of the acute sickness response and autonomic dysfunction. Conclusions: COFFI is an international collaboration which should be able to answer questions when data are pooled that are not answerable in the individual cohorts, such as do different infectious triggers (e.g., IM vs CG) trigger different PIF syndromes (e.g., chronic fatigue syndrome vs irritable bowel syndrome) or what are predictors of PIF or its severity.

AB - Background: The purpose of COFFI is for investigators of post-infection fatigue (PIF) and other syndromes to collaborate on these enigmatic and poorly understood conditions by studying relatively homogeneous populations with known infectious triggers, and pooling data and stored biosamples to support both epidemiological and laboratory research, to better understand the etiology and risk factors for development and progression of PIF. Methods: COFFI consists of prospective cohorts from the UK, Netherlands, Norway, USA, New Zealand and Australia, some closed and some open to recruitment. The 9 cohorts closed to recruitment include > 3,000 participants, including nearly 1000 with infectious mononucleosis (IM), > 500 with Q fever, > 800 with giardiasis, > 600 with campylobacter gastroenteritis (CG), 190 with Legionnaires disease and 60 with Ross River virus. Follow-up has been at least 6 months and up to 10 years. All studies are prospective and use the CDC Fukuda criteria for defining CFS. Results: Risk factors for nonrecovery included lower physical fitness, female gender, severity of the acute sickness response and autonomic dysfunction. Conclusions: COFFI is an international collaboration which should be able to answer questions when data are pooled that are not answerable in the individual cohorts, such as do different infectious triggers (e.g., IM vs CG) trigger different PIF syndromes (e.g., chronic fatigue syndrome vs irritable bowel syndrome) or what are predictors of PIF or its severity.

KW - Chronic fatigue syndrome

KW - infectious mononucleosis

KW - Q fever

KW - gastroenteritis

KW - Legionnaire's disease

U2 - 10.1080/21641846.2018.1426086

DO - 10.1080/21641846.2018.1426086

M3 - Article

JO - Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health and Behavior

JF - Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health and Behavior

SN - 2164-1846

ER -