Chest
Clinical Investigations: COPDPerception of Fatigue and Quality of Life in Patients With COPD
Section snippets
Sample
A convenience sample of 41 patients with stable COPD (FEV1 = 1.08 L [±0.55], FEV1, percent predicted = 35.8% [±16.6]) from two sites participated in the study. Based on Cohen's standard approach for correlation,22 anticipating a moderate effect size, the sample size is adequate to achieve the purpose of evaluating universal similarities of fatigue in this population from two international sites. The study was approved by the Human Subjects Review Board at the University of California, Davis and
RESULTS
Forty-one patients (28 male, 13 female) with moderate to severe COPD participated in the study (Table 1). There were no significant differences between the Dutch and American groups in each dimension of fatigue (Table 2). American patients showed a trend toward lower FVC, percent predicted (p = 0.055) than the Dutch patients but not with any other pulmonary function values. The American patients showed higher scores, and therefore, greater impairment in the activity subscale of the SGRQ (p <
DISCUSSION
Among the possible dimensions of fatigue in COPD, we measured five in the present study in the MFI-20: general or overall fatigue, two physical dimensions, physical fatigue and reduction in activity, and two cognitive dimensions, reduction in motivation and mental fatigue. Data from the present study were considered as regards the expected relationships between fatigue and the outcome measures. We show three major findings. Increased fatigue is associated with (1) an increase in the severity of
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