GPs still view ME patients as work-shy and lacking the motivation to recover, according to a new study into the condition.
The research published today in the British Medical Journal claims that many GPs are unsympathetic to ME (myalgic encephalopathy) patients and harbour suspicions about patients' attitudes to work. Doctors also often fail to respond to the condition as a serious illness, even though it was officially recognised by the Royal College of Physicians and General Practitioners in 1996 in accordance with World Health Organisation guidelines.
In the research, GPs are recorded as describing ME patients as "failing to conform to the work ethic", ignoring "every effort to get well as quickly as possible".
Dr Charles Shepherd, medical adviser to charity the ME Association, said GPs' attitudes were rooted in the "deeply conservative character" of the health profession, and that more needed to be done to challenge existing prejudices around the illness.
"In my training I was told that ME was a nonsense, a figment of patients' imagination, and unfortunately this attitude still prevails," said Dr Shepherd. "But more than 240,000 adults and children are affected by this debilitating illness and need all the support they can get from the health sector. So things need to change."
But Dr Shepherd criticised the research as a waste of public money and doing, nothing but reproducing existing attitudes rather than doing anything to challenge them. He also spoke out about the research's implication that ME is primarily a mental health issue.
"The research goes into dangerous territory by claiming that mental health interventions may help patients who have not responded to management in primary care," said Dr Shepherd.
"ME is officially recognised as a neurological disease, and until it is treated as such there can be no significant change in professional attitudes."
The study, led by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, analysed group discussions between 46 randomly selected GPs across England.
