Psychometric properties of the PROMIS® Fatigue Short Form 7a among adults with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome

Abstract

To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System® Fatigue Short Form 7a (PROMIS F-SF) among people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). Methods: Analyses were conducted using data from the Multi-Site Clinical Assessment of ME/CFS study, which recruited participants from seven ME/CFS specialty clinics across the US. Baseline and follow-up data from ME/CFS participants and healthy controls were used. Ceiling/Floor effects, internal consistency reliability, differential item functioning (DIF), knowngroups validity, and responsiveness were examined. Results: The final sample comprised 549 ME/CFS participants at baseline, 386 of whom also had follow-up. At baseline, the sample mean of PROMIS F-SF T-score was 68.6 (US general population mean T-score of 50 and standard deviation of 10). The PROMIS F-SF demonstrated good internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.84) and minimal floor/ceiling effects. No DIF was detected by age or sex for any item. This instrument also showed good known-groups validity with medium-to-large effect sizes (η 2 =0.08 to 0.69), with a monotonic increase of the fatigue T-score across ME/CFS participant groups with low, medium, and high functional impairment as measured by 3 different variables (p<0.01), and with significantly higher fatigue T-scores among ME/CFS participants than healthy controls (p<0.0001). Acceptable responsiveness was found with small-to-medium effect sizes (Guyatt's Responsiveness Statistic=0.28 to 0.54). 3 Conclusions: Study findings support the reliability and validity of PROMIS F-SF as a measure of fatigue for ME/CFS and lend support to the drug development tool submission for qualifying this measure to evaluate therapeutic effect in ME/CFS clinical trials.

PROMIS Scales for Assessment of Persistent Post-COVID Symptoms: A Cross Sectional Study

“…The PROMIS ® questionnaires are scaled to fit a T-scale, which has a normal distribution with a mean score of 50 and each standard deviation being represented by 10 points, and have been clinically validated in multiple conditions. In particular, the PROMIS ® questionnaires for fatigue, 13 - 15 pain interference, 16 - 18 and ability to participate in social roles 19 have been validated for syndromes such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). These syndromes have similarly diverse, chronic symptoms of incompletely defined etiology similar to the post-COVID syndrome.…”

Towards standardization of fatigue measurement: Psychometric properties and reference values of the PROMIS Fatigue item bank in the Dutch general population

“…19,20 Other psychometric properties, internal consistency, structural validity, test-retest reliability, construct validity, and responsiveness, of different PROMIS Fatigue short forms and CAT were supported across patient populations with a wide range of conditions, such as rheumatologic conditions, back pain, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, cancer, HIV, chronic heart failure, COPD, depression, and others. [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] Egerton et al evaluated the measurement properties of self-report questionnaires for measuring fatigue in older people. PROMIS Fatigue item bank and short forms performed best out of 77 identified questionnaires.…”

Oxaloacetate Treatment For Mental And Physical Fatigue In Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and Long-COVID fatigue patients: a non-randomized controlled clinical trial

“…Patients first completed baseline on-line validated fatigue surveys including the Chalder Fatigue Questionnaire [ 26 ], the Fatigue Severity Score [ 27 ] and the PROMIS Short Form Fatigue 7A survey [ 28 ]. Fatigue surveys were repeated at 2 weeks and 6 weeks for each group.…”