A follow-up study to health status of patients with idiopathic environmental intolerance attributed to electromagnetic fields in Taiwan

Abstract

Background: Previous short-term follow-up studies of idiopathic environmental intolerance attributed to electromagnetic fields (IEI-EMF) showed that some participants with IEI-EMF still had IEI-EMF after receiving the provocation test but the levels of their symptoms and discomforts were shown to have significantly decreased In addition around 30% of the participants were willing to reconsider the possibility that their symptoms might have been caused by something else There have been no long-term studies conducted The current study is likely to be the first long-term follow-up study of IEI-EMF Methods: The current study had two parts First we conducted a prospective longitudinal study to investigate the health status of the participants in our provocation trial conducted from 2010 to 2015 The same questionnaire was applied to interview the same participants by phone to conduct a repeated measurement Second we performed a cross-sectional study to survey the current prevalence rate of IEI-EMF in Taiwan A two-stage stratified sampling method according to the administrative division was applied and a nationwide random digital dialing (RDD) telephone survey was utilized Results: In the follow-up investigation a total of 70 participants received the interview and 62 9% of the participants with IEI-EMF reported they had recovered from IEI-EMF Of the recuperated participants 86 4% described idiopathic recovery and 13 6% reported they had recovered by moving or transferring jobs Of the participants in the IEI-EMF group 60% were willing to reconsider whether their symptoms they might have been caused by other factors The somatic symptoms of IEI-EMF significantly decreased in comparison with the former condition but the levels of the disturbance and worry related to EMF were similar to those previously In the prevalence survey a total of 1 355 participants were investigated The weighted prevalence rate of IEI-EMF was 4 6% which was the same as the results of the previous study conducted in 2012 Conclusions: In the current long-term follow-up 62 9% of the patients with IEI-EMF had recovered and 60% were willing to reconsider the possibility that their symptoms might have been caused by something other than EMFs higher than those reported by previous short-term studies The level of self-reported worries and disturbance to EMF were similar to those reported previously The prevalence rate of self-reported IEI-EMF had remained constant compared to the previous survey in 2012 in Taiwan

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Supervisor	How-Ran Guo (Supervisor)