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Original Article

Population-based normative data for the inflammatory bowel disease fatigue scale – IBD-F

, , &
Pages 1274-1279 | Received 06 Aug 2018, Accepted 03 Sep 2018, Published online: 23 Oct 2018
 

Abstract

Objective: Fatigue is a common concern among patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The Inflammatory Bowel Disease Fatigue (IBD-F) scale was developed in 2014 together with patients with IBD. The IBD-F comprises five questions about the frequency and severity of fatigue followed by 30 questions about the experience and impact of fatigue. All questions have generic character. Normative values are needed if the IBD-F scale is to be used extensively. This study aims to generate normative values for the IBD-F scale in a Danish background population.

Materials and methods: An age- and gender-stratified random sample of 3460 Danes was drawn from the total population. The IBD-F and a few socio-demographic questions were administered electronically.

Results: Of the 3460 drawn individuals, 2952 citizens with electronic access were invited to participate, 1925 (65.2%) citizens accepted the invitation, and 1761 (59.7%) completed the IBD-F questionnaire. Overall, women had more fatigue than men (the frequency and severity, 7.2 vs. 6.6; p < .001) (the experience and impact, 17.0 vs. 13.5; p < .001). Fatigue was most marked for citizens <50 and ≥80 years old. Having no education, working part time, and morbidity were factors associated with more fatigue. Co-habitation was associated with less fatigue. The internal consistency in this population revealed Cronbach's alpha values >0.85.

Conclusions: The IBD-F scale can be used in the background population and this study provides normative data for fatigue. Fatigue was higher for women and specific age groups. Several socio-demographic and morbidity variables were associated with fatigue.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest regarding this research.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded in part by an unrestricted grant from Takeda Pharma, Denmark.

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