Short fatigue questionnaire: Screening for severe fatigue, 2020, Knoop et al

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
Objective. To determine psychometric properties, a cut-off score for severe fatigue and normative data for the 4-item Short Fatigue Questionnaire (SFQ) derived from the multi-dimensional fatigue questionnaire Checklist Individual Strength (CIS).

Methods. Data of previous studies investigating the prevalence of fatigue in ten chronic conditions (n = 2985) and the general population (n = 2288) was used to determine the internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of the SFQ, its relation with other fatigue measures (EORTC QLQ-30 fatigue subscale and digital fatigue diary), a cut-off score for severe fatigue (ROC analysis) and to examine whether the four SFQ items truly measure the same construct. Norms were calculated for ten patient groups and the Dutch general population.

Results. Cronbach's alpha of the SFQ were excellent in almost all groups. Pearson's correlations between the SFQ and the EORTC-QLQ-C30 fatigue subscale and a fatigue diary were respectively 0.76 and 0.68. ROC analysis showed an area under the curve of 0.982 (95% CI: 0.979–0.985) and cut-off score of 18 was suggested which showed a good sensitivity (0.984) and specificity (0.826) as well as excellent values for the positive and negative prediction values within all groups using the CIS as golden standard. Factor analysis showed a one factor solution (Eigenvalue: 3.095) with factor loadings of all items on the factor being greater than 0.87.

Conclusion. The SFQ is an easy to use, reliable and valid instrument to screen for severe fatigue in clinical routine and research.
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Open access, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399920307911
 
As usual they are talking about tired people. Or maybe very tired people.

They say this for example:

Fatigue, defined as a sense of tiredness, lack of energy or feeling of exhaustion, is a common symptom in several clinical conditions [1]. Persistent severely fatigued persons, indicated as such by a cut-off score on a validated fatigue questionnaire, are limited in their daily functioning, visit their physician more often and have an increased risk for developing other diagnoses [
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Uh, NO. Clueless as usual. Who is it they are claiming to describe here. Or are they just gas-lighting for fun and profit.
 
Mij said:
They are certainly not describing ME "fatigue".



https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4295717/
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It's amazing how much they tell when they insist on what the concept is NOT, where they literally describe what it actually is. The only common feature they agree on is rejection of reality. Like the recent CBT for CFS document that asserts that sick children and teens with CFS don't want to get back to their old self, which is literally the only thing they want. Hell, it's even the thing they all say. It's like they have a need to contradict everything we say, that their entire thing is basically being against whatever we need.

Right up there with someone asserting that the main reason people go to a restaurant isn't food. What kind of madness is this? This is all basically bizarro world science, where everything is backwards, even the thinking.
 
Participant A reported feeling pep, energy, and worn out ‘none of the time.’ However, when asked about feeling tired, she wrote that she did not feel “tired,” but rather she felt “ill.” Additionally, Participant A demonstrated low levels of fatigue and tiredness on the DSQ, with a composite score of 0.

Participant A identified as a 63 year old, white female, divorced with 4 children. She was a retired lawyer and for the six months prior to completing the study, she reported that she was able to do light housework, but she could not work part-time. She reported that she could not exercise because it made her symptoms worse. Furthermore, engaging in mental effort or minimal physical effort caused a worsening in her fatigue/energy related illness. She reported that when she did engage in activity, she felt worse for more than four days and possibly up to several weeks. Her issues with fatigue and energy consistently did not get alleviated with rest. She reported that there was definitely a physical cause to her fatigue and energy and she also experienced sore throats, tender lymph nodes/swollen glands, muscle aches, joint pain, memory problems, and concentration problems. At the time of participation, she reported that a medical doctor was overseeing her fatigue and energy problems.

Participant A also reported experiencing substantial reductions in activity by at least 50% as a result of her fatigue and energy problems. Prior to the onset of her illness, she reported spending 20 hours on household related activities, 5 hours on social related activities, 20 hours on family related activities, and 50 hours of work related activities weekly. Yet, at the time of the study, she was only able to spend 3 hours on household related activities, 1 hour on social related activities, 1 hour on family related activities, and 0 hours on work related activities per week. Specifically, on the day prior to the study, Participant A had a Daily Energy Quotient of 100, in which she indicated her Perceived Energy to be 20 and Expended Energy to be 20. However, she did not provide a fatigue rating because she indicated that she did not have general fatigue. She stated “Fatigue is the normal physiological process of recovery after exertion which is precisely what I no longer have. I feel as though I have simultaneous flu and mumps with a raft of nasty extras.”
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Participant B identified as a 69 year old, white female, divorced with 2 children. She reported that she was unemployed at the time of participation, but her most recent occupation was a registered nurse. In the six months prior to the study, she reported that she could only work part-time or on some family responsibilities. She was unable to exercise because it made her symptoms worse and she reported that engaging in mental effort or minimal physical effort caused a worsening in her fatigue/energy related illness. After engaging in activity, she reported feeling worse for one to two weeks. Rest partially alleviated her fatigue and energy problems, but she reported that she typically did not have refreshing sleep. She believed that there was definitely a physical cause to her fatigue and energy and she reported experiencing joint pain, headaches, memory problems, and some concentration problems.
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Did the researchers actually listen to what these patients were describing? Could they not work out that these patients were fed up of being gas-lighted and were responding to the inadequacies of the questionnaire?
 
When I first got ill in the early 80's, I don't think I ever used the word "fatigue." To me the word "fatigue" implies prior exertion. I felt like crap just sitting in one place all day.

I always told doctors that I felt like I had the flu (sans fever, or upper respiratory symptoms). I doubt I ever used the words "fatigue" or "malaise." I would have just said "I feel sick."

When I first heard the term "chronic fatigue syndrome" I really doubted that it applied to me. Then I discovered the range of symptoms that that innocuous term obscured.
 
Simbindi said:
Despite Participant A stating explicitly (in the true manner of a lawyer) that she didn't suffer from fatigue they still lept referring to her illness as a fatigue/energy problem, rather than an illness that makes her feel physically sick!
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It's as if what they hear when we talk is like when the adults talk in Peanuts. It's just noise to them. The substance of what we say never gets past the ear filter that turns everything into annoying waa-waa.
 
Given how little is actually known about fatigue it's weird how much time they keep exploring fatigue levels via questionnaires. Of course this is because they can't do actual science so the grade school stuff of inane questions seems to be accepted enough to keep them employed.

It would be much much more useful for someone to tackle the hard issues of what is fatigue, is it all one same thing, what are it's qualities, what is the biology?

Nobody much seems to care. I can only suppose that they think the psych's have it covered as it's their area. And yet they can't even develop useful questionnaires as tools so why are they still getting money? There is far too much psych research. And universities just keep churning out more.
 
Snowdrop said:
Given how little is actually known about fatigue it's weird how much time they keep exploring fatigue levels via questionnaires. Of course this is because they can't do actual science so the grade school stuff of inane questions seems to be accepted enough to keep them employed.

It would be much much more useful for someone to tackle the hard issues of what is fatigue, is it all one same thing, what are it's qualities, what is the biology?

Nobody much seems to care. I can only suppose that they think the psych's have it covered as it's their area. And yet they can't even develop useful questionnaires as tools so why are they still getting money? There is far too much psych research. And universities just keep churning out more.
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because idiots give funding based on the number of papers published and not on the quality .the system has always been broken .
 
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