Prevalence of Chronic Widespread Pain and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in Korean Livestock Raisers

Chronic widespread pain (CWP), the cardinal symptom of fibromyalgia (FM), is prevalent and co-occurs with numerous symptom-based conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). It was given a standard definition by an American College of Rheumatology (ACR) committee. This definition emphasizes that axial pain is a constant feature and that pain has to be present in the upper and lower quadrants and the right and left sides of the body. Recent studies have reported that CWP is common in the general population and its prevalence (7.3% to 14.0%) is comparable in reports from the United States, UK, Canada, Israel, and Korea . Although several definitions of CFS have been proposed, the criteria set by an international expert panel under the aegis of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in 1994 is used in most studies as well as in clinical settings. Jason et al. estimated the current prevalence of CFS in the random community-based sample as 0.42%. Kim et al. reported the point prevalence of CFS was 0.6% in community-based primary care settings in Korea. There have been several population-based studies of CFS-like illness (generally defined as meeting all self-reported criteria for CFS but lacking a physical examination). The interview studies have yielded much lower prevalences than questionnaire studies, reporting current prevalence data in the 2–3% range. There have been many epidemiological studies of CWP and CFS in the general population or samples ascertained from clinical sources, but such studies have not been reported in the same occupation sample. It may be helpful to report in which occupation CWP and CFS are more prevalent for future research about the pathogenesis of these illnesses. Thus, we conducted this study to estimate the prevalence of CWP and CFS in Korean livestock raisers.