Assessment of fatigue in oncology. Implementation of the Perform Questionnaire

Abstract

Fatigue-related cancer is one of the most frequent problems and one of the symptoms with more impact in the quality of life in patients with cancer; and often it persists during months or years after the treatment has finished. The etiology and physiopathology are complex and, in most of cases, not well known, existing multiple interactions with other clinical entities related with cancer. The therapeutical approach must be individualized, including the treatment of contributing factors, education of the patient, the implementation of general therapeutic reccomendations, pharmacological treatment and non-pharmacologic interventions, specially exercise. With the aim of detect and assess fatigue-related cancer in the clinical practice, some scales and questionnaires have been developed. Classicaly the have been classified as unidimensional and multidimensional questionnaires. However, one of the most important questions regarding the quality of life scales, and in particular fatigue scales, is that it`s design, development and validation must be performed in the social and cultural context of the population in which the questionnaire is going to be implemented. The Perform Questionnaire is the only scale for the assessment of fatigue-related cancer developed and validated completely in a Spanish population.