Table 2.

Characteristics of an ideal fatigue assessment tool (Adapted from Whitehead, 2009 [42])

Parameter	Ideal tool
Scale usability	• Easy to understand and complete • Minimal burden for patient and physician
Clinical utility	• Discriminates presence versus absence of fatigue with acceptable sensitivity and specificity • Provides description of severity of fatigue and its impact • Useful as outcome measure sensitive to changes with disease worsening or therapeutic intervention
Psychometric properties	• Robust precision and accuracy • Reliable and consistent with good reproducibility • Stable and repeatable over time and among raters • Possesses stable structure that measures what is intended • Correlates reasonably with similar fatigue-specific tools • Discriminates between different patient groups and symptoms • Captures change in fatigue symptoms over time