Fatigue Assessment Questionnaire:: Standardization of a cancer-specific instrument based on the general population

Objectives: Fatigue has become a major issue of concern in the care of cancer patients, as it has been shown to compromise their quality of life in a significant and lasting way. However, there is a lack of economic and specific measures. The Fatigue Assessment Questionnaire (FAQ) has been developed based on thorough interviews and tested on a large mixed sample of cancer patients. The purposes of this paper are to test the psychometric properties of the FAQ and to provide norms for the German population. Methods: The FAQ was administered to a representative sample of the German population ( 1,340 female and 1,101 male participants) along with standardized scales of depression, mood and life satisfaction. Results: We could confirm that fatigue is multidimensional and can be measured by the scales of physical, affective and cognitive fatigue with good reliability and validity. The dependency of fatigue on sex and age makes it useful to have standard fatigue scores for oncological research as provided in this paper. Conclusion: The FAQ is a promising, differentiated, yet economic instrument for further use in oncological research. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel.