Measuring fatigue severity in primary care patients

Objective: We developed a new instrument to measure fatigue that synthesized information from existing instruments. Methods: 35 candidate items and 4 formats for a new fatigue scale were obtained from 15 previously developed instruments. A new scale was developed using factor analysis on a data set...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of psychosomatic research 2003-06, Vol.54 (6), p.515-521
Main Authors: Hartz, Arthur, Bentler, Suzanne, Watson, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Biological and medical sciences
Epidemiologic Studies
Factor analysis
Fatigue
Fatigue - classification
Female
Health status
Health status indicators
Humans
Male
Mass screening
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Patients
Primary Health Care
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychometrics
Psychometrics. Diagnostic aid systems
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Questionnaires
Screening
Severity
Severity of Illness Index
Surveys and Questionnaires
Techniques and methods
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Summary:Objective: We developed a new instrument to measure fatigue that synthesized information from existing instruments. Methods: 35 candidate items and 4 formats for a new fatigue scale were obtained from 15 previously developed instruments. A new scale was developed using factor analysis on a data set of 409 primary care patients and validated on a sample of 816 additional subjects. Results: Different formats for obtaining information about a given fatigue item gave similar results. The new 11 item scale contained four subscales: cognitive, fatigue, energy and productivity. Correlations between the four subscales ranged from .49 to .66. Patients with a higher fatigue score were much more likely to have lower health status, greater depression and more somatic symptoms. Conclusion: This new instrument may be useful in primary care and epidemiological studies to screen and monitor patients for fatigue severity and type.
ISSN:0022-3999
1879-1360
DOI:10.1016/S0022-3999(02)00600-1