Quality criteria and user-friendliness in self-reported questionnaires on cancer-related fatigue: a review.
OBJECTIVE
Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a distressing, persistent, subjective sense of tiredness or exhaustion that occurs in 70-100% of cancer patients. The purpose of this review was to provide an overview of the quality of research performed on existing CRF self-report questionnaires and compare their reported psychometric properties and user-friendliness.


METHODS
Database searches of CINAHL, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, MEDLINE, Scopus, PEDro, and PsycINFO were undertaken to find published scales. Standardized criteria were used to assess quality and user-friendliness.


RESULTS
Thirty-five articles were included that described 18 questionnaires-seven one-dimensional questionnaires and 11 multidimensional questionnaires. The mean item count was 20.8 (range: 3-83). The mean overall score of the one-dimensional questionnaires was 10.4 of a maximum of 18 points (range: 7.6-14.3). The mean overall score of the multidimensional questionnaires was 9.4 of a maximum of 18 points (range: 4.3-14.4).


CONCLUSIONS
Recommendations were made for the selection of a scale. We argue in favor of repeatedly reassessing psychometric properties of even established questionnaires to ensure they comply with evermore increasing stringent quality criteria.
Agasi-Idenburg
Carla
C
Department of Physiotherapy, The Netherlands Cancer Institute - Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. c.idenburg@nki.nl
Velthuis
Miranda
M
Wittink
Harriet
H
D005221:Fatigue / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D011594:Psychometrics; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*