Unexplained fatigue and hemoglobin: a primary care study.
The authors of this article investigated the relation between unexplained fatigue and the hemoglobin concentration in a general practice setting. They determined the hematologic parameters of 174 patients with unexplained fatigue in whom the general practitioners established an indication for hemoglobin measuring; a control group of 148 patients was used. Taking gender into consideration, the same distributions were found in both groups. This pattern was not influenced by the duration and severity of the symptom, the presence of other "anemic" symptoms, nor the opinion of the physicians about the likelihood of a low hemoglobin level. Hemoglobin levels below 7.0 mmol/l were not found. Obviously, in patients with unexplained fatigue the hypothesis "anemia" will rarely be confirmed.
J A
JA
Knottnerus
P G
PG
Knipschild
J W
JW
Wersch
A H
AH
Sijstermanns
J Am Med Assoc. 1958 May 31;167(5):563-6
13538740
Br Med J. 1969 Aug 23;3(5668):436-9
5258252
Br Med J. 1954 Apr 17;1(4867):918
13149871
J Chronic Dis. 1969 Feb;21(9):615-28
5770429
J Fam Pract. 1980 May;10(5):795-801
7391758
Br J Prev Soc Med. 1966 Jul;20(3):117-21
5967959
Practitioner. 1972 Aug;209(250):218-22
5078236
JAMA. 1984 Jun 22-29;251(24):3272-6
6727003