Billones R, Liwang JK, Butler K, Graves L, Saligan LN. Dissecting the fatigue experience: A scoping review of fatigue definitions, dimensions, and measures in non-oncologic medical conditions.
Brain Behav Immun Health 2021;
15:100266. [PMID:
34589772 PMCID:
PMC8474156 DOI:
10.1016/j.bbih.2021.100266]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/21/2021] [Revised: 04/29/2021] [Accepted: 05/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Introduction
Fatigue is a prevalent and potentially debilitating symptom that impacts the health-related quality-of-life of individuals diagnosed with acute and chronic medical conditions. Yet, its etiologic mechanism is not fully understood. Additionally, the assessment and determination of the clinical meaning of fatigue and its multidimensionality may vary by medical condition.
Methods
A scoping literature review was conducted to investigate how fatigue is defined and measured, including its dimensions, in non-oncologic medical conditions. The PubMed database was searched using keywords.
Results
Overall, 8376 articles were screened at the title/abstract levels, where 293 articles were chosen for full-text review that mentioned fatigue or included fatigue measures. The review of the full text excluded 246 articles that did not assess at least one fatigue dimension using validated questionnaires and clinical tests. The final set included 47 articles. Physical fatigue was the most assessed fatigue dimension and the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory was the most widely used questionnaire to assess fatigue in this review.
Limitations
This review was limited by including only English-language publications and using PubMed as the sole database for the search.
Conclusions
This review affirms that fatigue is a multidimensional construct, agnostic of medical condition, and that individual fatigue dimensions can be measured by validated clinical measures. Future research should focus on expanding the repertoire of clinical measures to assess specific fatigue dimensions.
The 27 different validated clinical measures used to assess fatigue and its dimensions; 20 instruments assessed the physical, 8 for mental, 7 cognitive, 5 for motivational, 2 for emotional, 1 peripheral, 1 for central, 1 psychosocial.
Physical was the most measured dimension, as assessed in 42 of 47 included articles.
This review affirms that fatigue is a multidimensional construct, agnostic of medical condition, and that individual fatigue dimensions can be measured by validate clinical measures.
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