Psychometric Testing of Fatigue Instruments for Use With Cancer Patients

Abstract

The results of the study provide researchers and clinicians with detailed comparisons of the performance of established fatigue measures in cancer patients undergoing treatment to use when selecting measures of CRF.

Genetic Variability in Iron-Related Oxidative Stress Pathways (Nrf2, NQ01, NOS3, andHO-1), Iron Intake, and Risk of Postmenopausal Breast Cancer

“…Potential participation bias, however, was unlikely to have affected our findings because the women who provided blood specimens were similar to the overall population in the distribution of most demographic and lifestyle characteristics (104). As well, the prevalence of regular multivitamin use among women in our nested casecontrol study was 42% and 39% in cases and controls, respectively, similar to the reported rate of 42.4% in the main study cohort (105). The mean dietary iron intake in our study population of 9.80 mg/d was almost identical to levels reported for the 75,272 white women in the CPS-II nutrition cohort of 9.82 mg/d (65).…”

Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Crossover Trials of Venlafaxine for Hot Flashes After Breast Cancer

“…Fatigue was measured using the Profile of Mood States Short Form fatigue subscale, consistent with other studies on fatigue in cancer patients [27,32,33]. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index provided a global score ranging from 0 to 16, with scores Ն5 indicating poor sleep quality and high sleep disturbance [34 -36].…”

Basal Ganglia Hypermetabolism and Symptoms of Fatigue during Interferon-α Therapy

“…Based on previous work indicating that fatigue is the most prominent IFN-a-induced symptom (Capuron et al, 2002a), subjects were also administered the self-report VAS-F, an 18-item 100-mm visual analogue scale, which assesses fatigue using two series of inverse items: a 'fatigue' series (13 items including 'tired', 'sleepy', 'drowsy', 'fatigued', 'worn out', 'bushed', 'exhausted', difficulty 'keeping eyes open', difficulty 'moving my body', difficulty 'concentrating', difficulty 'carrying on a conversation', 'desire to close my eyes', 'desire to lie down') and an 'energy' series (five items including 'energetic', 'active', 'vigorous', 'efficient', 'lively'), which together represent 'fatigue' and 'energy' subscales (Lee et al, 1991). The VAS-F has been shown to possess good overall psychometric properties (Lee et al, 1991;Meek et al, 2000;Miaskowski and Lee, 1999), although in a comparison of multiple fatigue instruments and their subscales (see below), the energy subscale of the VAS-F was found to exhibit the highest reliability in measuring fatigue-related symptoms in cancer patients (Meek et al, 2000).…”

“…First, the study included a relatively small number of subjects, which possibly contributed to the inability to detect a significant relationship between basal ganglia activity and VAS-F fatigue subscale scores as well as other potential brain-behavior relationships during IFN-a administration. Nevertheless, as noted above, compared to the VAS-F energy subscale, the VAS-F fatigue subscale has been found to exhibit reduced stability and effect size compared with the energy subscale in a recent study focused on validating psychometric instruments for fatiguerelated symptoms in cancer patients (Meek et al, 2000). Indeed, in this study, among all the instruments (and their subscales) examined, including the Profile of Mood States short-form fatigue subscale, Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue, the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory, and the VAS-F scale, the VAS-F energy subscale was one of only two subscales that met satisfactory levels of test-retest reliability in cancer patients.…”