NOTE: The FITNET study has finished and it's platform was decommissioned on 13/12/2021. The final follow-up was expected on 11th February 2022 and the results will be published within a year of this date.

Chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) is common. At least 1% of teenagers miss a day a week of school because of CFS/ME. Specialist treatment is effective but most children in the UK do not have a local specialist service and therefore cannot access treatment.

The FITNET-NHS study, led by Professor Esther Crawley, will test two treatments for CFS/ME that can be delivered at home: online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and Activity Management delivered via video call (Skype). The study will involve up to 734 11-17 year olds with CFS/ME and will run until 2021.

The Research IT team has worked with the FITNET-NHS research team to develop the system that delivers online CBT for the study. The online CBT system incorporates 19 interactive online chapters which cover sleep, building up physical, mental and social activities (including school) as well as CBT-specific chapters looking at helpful thoughts and shifting attention away from fatigue. Therapists can lock and unlock individual chapters to provide individualised access to each participant depending on the participant’s specific needs and goals.

The online system also includes questionnaires and online diaries. Additionally, regular one-to-one e-consultations between participants and their therapists take place within the online system.

The FITNET-NHS online system has been developed using Django and Python. The data is stored in a MySQL database.

An example of the Diares Section on the FITNET app.