title: Cancer related fatigue: A ubiquitous problem yet so under reported, under recognized and under treated.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cancer related fatigue (CRF) is a problem that is highly under reported, under recognized and thus, under treated. About 80% of patients receiving chemotherapy/radiotherapy experience CRF, making it the most common side effect of cancer treatment. Functional assessment of chronic illness therapy fatigue (FACIT-F) version-4 is a 13 item questionnaire that has been used to measure the level of fatigue of cancer patients during their daily activities over the past 7 days.
  
  
  METHODS
  92 patients of age 18 years and above attending the oncology Out Patient Department (OPD) of a regional cancer center were recruited in this study and were given FACIT-F questionnaire. The relevant sociodemographic parameters were obtained from the medical records of the patients. The internal consistency of the 13 items was measured using the Cronbach's alpha.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The Cronbach alpha coefficient for FACIT-F scale in our study was found to be 0.74. Kendall's coefficient of concordance was estimated to be 0.080. The correlation between Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status and mean score of FACIT-F was studied, Pearson correlation coefficient was estimated to be 0.271 (P = 0.009).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  FACIT-F is a brief, simple, easy to administer and patient friendly tool to measure the fatigue in last 7 days. CRF should be given adequate attention from the beginning of the treatment to improve the quality of life of cancer patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Treatment and Research Institute, Bikaner, Rajasthan, India.
authors.forename: Akhil
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kapoor
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Treatment and Research Institute, Bikaner, Rajasthan, India.
authors.forename: Mukesh Kumar
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Singhal
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Treatment and Research Institute, Bikaner, Rajasthan, India.
authors.forename: Puneet Kumar
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Bagri
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Treatment and Research Institute, Bikaner, Rajasthan, India.
authors.forename: Satya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Narayan
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Treatment and Research Institute, Bikaner, Rajasthan, India.
authors.forename: Surender
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Beniwal
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Treatment and Research Institute, Bikaner, Rajasthan, India.
authors.forename: Harvindra Singh
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Kumar
keywords: Cancer related fatigue; Cronbach's alpha; FACIT-F scale; quality of life
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