Department of Mathematics and Statistics, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Rheumatology (Oxford). 2012 Dec;51(12):2177-85. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kes206. Epub 2012 Aug 25.
Fatigue is a common and important problem in SSc. No studies, however, have compared the properties of fatigue measures in SSc. The objective of this study was to compare the performances of the Short Form-36 (SF-36) Vitality subscale and Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT) in SSc.
Cross-sectional, multi-centre study of Canadian Scleroderma Research Group Registry patients. The associations of the two instruments with other patient-reported outcome measures, as well as physician- and patient-rated disease variables were compared. Item response theory models were used to compare the degree to which items and the total scores of each measure effectively covered the full spectrum of fatigue levels.
There were 348 patients (297 women, 85%) in the study. The instruments correlated at r = 0.65 with each other. The FACIT tended to correlate slightly higher than the SF-36 Vitality subscale with physician- and patient-rated disease variables and patient-reported physical function and disability, whereas the SF-36 Vitality subscale correlated minimally higher with mental health measures. The FACIT had markedly better discrimination across the range of fatigue, particularly at average to high fatigue levels, whereas the SF-36 Vitality subscale discriminated well only among patients in the low to average range.
The FACIT discriminates better than the SF-36 Vitality subscale at average to high ranges of fatigue, which is common in SSc, suggesting that it is preferred for measuring fatigue in SSc.
疲劳是 SSc 中常见且重要的问题。然而，尚无研究比较 SSc 疲劳测量指标的特性。本研究的目的是比较短表 36 项健康调查（SF-36）活力分量表和慢性疾病治疗疲乏评估-疲乏（FACIT）在 SSc 中的表现。
这是一项加拿大硬皮病研究组注册患者的横断面、多中心研究。比较了两种工具与其他患者报告结局测量指标以及医生和患者评估疾病变量的相关性。使用项目反应理论模型比较了各指标和各测量总分有效涵盖疲劳水平全谱的程度。
研究共纳入 348 例患者（297 例女性，85%）。两种工具的相关性为 r = 0.65。与医生和患者评估的疾病变量以及患者报告的身体功能和残疾相比，FACIT 与 SF-36 活力分量表的相关性略高，而 SF-36 活力分量表与心理健康测量指标的相关性最低。FACIT 在疲劳的整个范围内具有更好的区分度，尤其是在平均至高度疲劳水平，而 SF-36 活力分量表仅在疲劳处于低至中等范围的患者中具有良好的区分度。
在平均至高度疲劳范围内，FACIT 比 SF-36 活力分量表的区分度更好，这在 SSc 中很常见，提示在 SSc 中测量疲劳时，更推荐使用 FACIT。
