Fatigue and its Determinants in Radio-Oncology

Backround Fatigue is a common symptom among cancer patients, influencing their quality of life. The primary goal of his study was to identify parameters influencing fatigue, both prior to radiotherapy (RT) and changes in fatigue during RT. Methods 239 patients could be assessed prior to RT, 208 patients were reassessed at the end of RT. Measures comprised the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20), the Resilience Scale (RS) and the SF-12 as a measure of health related Quality of Life (QoL). Results The sample revealed higher scores in the MFI and in the RS as well as lower scores in the SF-12 than normative samples. Fatigue increased significantly during RT. Fatigue at the beginning of RT was best predicted by the patients' resilience scores, changes of fatigue scores during RT depended on the patients' initial fatigue scores, the decrease in haemoglobin and the patients' experience with RT. Conclusions Fatigue appears to be an important problem among cancer patients receiving RT. Resilience proved to powerfully predict the patients' fatigue at the beginning of RT. This result confirms other studies showing resilience to be an important psychological predictor of QoL and coping in cancer patients. The change of fatigue during RT is mainly related to disease- and treatment-related factors.