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An unobtrusive investigation of an elusive condition: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Bruce Rumbold
Acting Director, Palliative Care Unit, La Trobe University, Melbourne VIC
Abstract
Given the amount of community concern about chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) there has been surprisingly little interest taken by social science researchers. While there is both a growing medical literature and an extensive sufferers' literature, sociologically-informed studies are scarce. There has been little discussion of the social processes by which CFS has emerged as a medical diagnosis, the social relations which mediate this diagnosis, or the social contexts in which CFS is identified.
I outline here an investigation of these social processes. The approach adopted is an unobtrusive one, working with texts already available in the public domain (Kellehear, 1993).
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