Psychometric Properties of the Brief Fatigue Inventory in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Abstract

Objective To investigate the psychometric properties of the Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) in community-dwelling older adults. Design Cross-sectional validation study. Setting Community-based longitudinal cohort aging study in Westchester County, New York. Participants Subjects (N=302) were non-demented older adults (mean age 76.44 years, 54% female). Interventions Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures BFI total, severity, and interference summation scores. Results A Principle Component Analysis (PCA) yielded two factors: fatigue severity and interference, explaining 65.94% of the variance. Both factors had good reliability, with Cronbach’s α values of 0.867 for fatigue interference and 0.818 for fatigue severity. Higher fatigue scores were associated with older age and worse physical and cognitive functions. Conclusions Fatigue is a common and debilitating symptom in the aging population. The current study provides novel findings in validating and establishing a bi-dimensional factor structure for the BFI in older adults. Severity and interference were differentially related to important health outcomes; therefore, utilizing these subscales in addition to the total BFI scaled score is recommended with older adults. Because of its relatively short administration time and established psychometric properties, the BFI can be successfully incorporated into longitudinal studies and clinical trials.

The Brief Fatigue Inventory is reliable and valid for the burn patient cohort

“…The single domain demonstrated in the factor analysis and concordance with injury severity and recovery measures confirmed the validity of the scale for burn patients. These attributes are similar to that demonstrated in the use of the BFI in other populations [7,29,30]. The significant correlation of BFI with BSHS-B scores in the multivariate model established criterion validity.…”

Development and Validation of the State-Trait Inventory of Cognitive Fatigue in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

“…There were strong positive relationships between subscales of the STI-CF (particularly for mental effort and motivation) with error, ratio, and subtraction scores on the TMT, which are thought to be more sensitive to aspects of executive functioning that require maximizing attentional demands and rearranging resources, supporting the limited capacity framework for cognitive fatigue. Coupled with a lack of a relationship with neuropsychological measures that are not related to this construct, this provides further evidence that fatigue and executive control may be related (29, 56, 72) and that the STI-CF may be a useful measure for examining this relationship.…”

“…A recent study validating the scale in older adults found that it had a bi-dimensional factor structure (fatigue severity and fatigue interference) with good reliability (56). The STI-CF was hypothesized to have a positive but weak relationship with the BFI since the scales measure different aspects of fatigue.…”

Activity pacing in daily life: A within-day analysis

“…Fatigue severity was measured using the Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) severity subscale [26]. This subscale was chosen as it represents a dimension of fatigue which is more highly associated with performance of physical tasks by older adults compared to fatigue interference which is also measured by the BFI [39]. The severity subscale is an average of 3 items from the BFI in which fatigue severity in different contexts is measured on a 0 – 10 scale.…”