Table 3.
Participant Comments Classified by Category
| Item/Statement | Category |
|---|---|
| Because of your fatigue, do you find your personal hygiene sliding? | *ADL/IADL Impact |
| Because of your fatigue, do you find yourself compromising (letting things slide)? | ADL/IADL Impact |
| Because of your fatigue, do you find yourself skipping meals or eating late or making smaller meals? | ADL/IADL Impact |
| Do you fall asleep while doing things you want to do like watching a good movie, being on computer or reading a book? | ADL/IADL Impact |
| Does fatigue affect your handwriting? Computer skills? | ADL/IADL Impact |
| After a shower/bath and getting dressed, do you feel you expended most of your energy? | ADL/IADL Impact |
| Ask questions regarding specific activities of daily living that are being affected by fatigue; dressing, meal preparation, organization within home, paying bills on time, making and keeping appointments | ADL/IADL Impact |
| Ask questions regarding specific activities of daily living that are being affected by fatigue; dressing, meal preparation, organization within home, paying bills on time, making and keeping appointments | ADL/IADL Impact |
| Did you ever get part way through a project and you were alone and thought “oh oh” I bit off more than I can chew! Now what do I do?! | ADL/IADL Impact |
| Does your brain or your body parts tell you “when is enough”. Sometimes you try something and right away or part way your brain says oh! Oh! | ADL/IADL Impact |
| Getting dressed, put on makeup, take care of pets, fixing something healthy for meals, especially living alone. | ADL/IADL Impact |
| How often are you too tired to plan/cook a meal at the end of the day? | ADL/IADL Impact |
| How often do you get “fast food” because you are too tired to cook/plan a meal | ADL/IADL Impact |
| How often do you not have the energy for “unplanned” activities? | ADL/IADL Impact |
| Because of your fatigue, did you come to realize you made improper decisions? | Cognitive |
| How does using your cognitive drain you? | Cognitive |
| Did you feel like fatigue affected your memory? | Cognitive |
| Do you feel at times you are in a mental fog? | Cognitive |
| Do you have difficulty saying what you mean? | Cognitive |
| Does a nap at certain times of day help manage fatigue? | Coping |
| How often do stimulants help | Coping |
| How often do you take “energy boosters” (stimulants, caffeinated beverages, chocolate, medication) to decrease your fatigue? | Coping |
| Realizing your fatigue, do you think you could have done things differently? | Coping |
| What do you do to stabilize situations? | Coping |
| How do I recover? | Coping |
| How often do you plan a nap into your day in order to have the energy to do an activity later in the day? | Coping |
| Need to ask demographic questions about effect of medication on fatigue | Coping |
| What did you do to lessen your fatigue? | Coping |
| What do you do when fatigued? | Coping |
| At what point in a typical day do you “run out of gas?” | Temporal |
| How fatigued do you feel upon waking in the morning? | Temporal |
| How often after a busy active day are you so tired that the following day you spend resting? | Temporal |
| What time of day are you most fatigued? | Temporal |
| Do the change of seasons influence your fatigue? | Temporal |
| How long do bouts of fatigue last? | Temporal |
| How long to recover? | Temporal |
| Is there a time of day that you experience fatigue regularly? | Temporal |
| Perhaps inquiring about a person’s fatigue and how it progresses (or doesn’t) throughout a typical day | Temporal |
| What/when are your best times during a typical day? | Temporal |
| Do you ever feel like life is going by and think what’s the point? | Emotional Impact |
| Does your fatigue affect your happiness? | Emotional Impact |
| Does your fatigue affect your overall well being and satisfaction with life? | Emotional Impact |
| How does it affect the quality of life for you? | Emotional Impact |
| How often does fatigue cause short temper? | Emotional Impact |
| How often does fatigue decrease patience with yourself? | Emotional Impact |
| How often do you just not care about people or getting things done? | Emotional Impact |
| How often do you reflect back to what you used to accomplish in a day? | Emotional Impact |
| Questions regarding fatigue and mood | Emotional Impact |
| Do you feel like your fatigue is a problem? | Emotional Impact |
| Does pain interfere with fatigue? | Symptom Interaction |
| How often do you think that if you could eliminate or reduce your pain you would have less fatigue? | Symptom Interaction |
| How often does fatigue interfere with physical function? | Symptom Interaction |
| Do you feel you can’t get out of the house due to physical fatigue or is it due to the depressive elements of the disease? | Symptom Interaction |
| How fatigue effects bladder and eye sight control | Symptom Interaction |
| Have you noticed any patterns/triggers for your fatigue? | Triggers |
| How does the heat affect your cognitive? | Triggers |
| How does the heat affect your fatigue? | Triggers |
| How often did background noise affect your fatigue | Triggers |
| How often did stress affect your fatigue | Triggers |
| What fatigues you more – walking or things done with your hands and arms? | Triggers |
| What has changed in your life? | Triggers |
| Have you had any other illness in the past 7 days? | Triggers |
| How often did heat affect your fatigue | Triggers |
| Is your fatigue triggered at certain times of day? | Triggers |
| What are my daily activities and which are most tiring | Triggers |
| What has been going on in family life, work life, social life in the past 7 days? | Triggers |
| I think there needs to be an opportunity to comment with greater detail. | General Comment |
| Questions relating to sexual relations | Impact on Sex |
Note: ADL = Activities of Daily Living; IADL = Instrumental Activities of Daily Living