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ABSTRACT
Background: Fatigue in adult Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is increasingly being acknowledged by clinicians. However, no research to date has explored the nature of fatigue experienced by adults with this disorder.
Purpose: This paper aimed to examine fatigue in adult DCD within the context of a range of psychosocial measures such as mood and everyday functioning. Adults with DCD were compared to a group of adults with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and a typically developing/ non-fatigued group.
Method: Fifty-three adults with DCD, 84 with CFS and 52 typically developing/ non-CFS adults completed a range of established psychometric measures via an online data collection tool.
Results: Findings demonstrated clear differences between the DCD and typically developing/ non-fatigued group for all measures administered, including fatigue (p < 0.001). When compared to the CFS group, adults with DCD showed significantly lower levels of cognitive difficulties (p < 0.05), fatigue (p < 0.001), somatic symptoms (p < 0.001), and total symptoms (p < 0.001). However, no significant differences were found between the DCD and CFS groups in terms of anxiety, depression, cognitive failures, negative and positive affect, and self-esteem.
Conclusions: Of particular importance in the current study was the capture of data that corroborated anecdotal evidence of heightened levels of fatigue in adults with DCD along with elevated symptomatology for depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem and difficulties with respect to cognitive functioning and restorative sleep.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Natalie Williams and Robert Heriene for their assistance in participant recruitment. We would also like to thank the support groups (the Dyspraxia Foundation and Action for ME) for publicising the study, and all of the adults who took part in the survey.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Marie Thomas
Dr Marie Thomas is Reader in Psychology at Bath Spa University. Her expertise lies in the effects of a range of health-related factors in human mood, psychopathology and performance – including caffeine, alcohol and colds and influenza. She is particularly interested in fatigue and cognition, her PhD focusses on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and she has widened her research to investigate fatigue across a range of health conditions.
Gary Christopher
Dr Gary Christopher is Senior Lecturer in Cognition and Ageing and Theme Leader for the Lifespan and Developmental Psychology section of the Psychological Sciences Research Group at the University of the West of England, Bristol. His expertise lies in emotion regulation and cognitive impairment in the context of physical and mental health, specifically anxiety, depression, fatigue, personality disorder, and most recently dementia. He is particularly interested in ageing and recently published a textbook, The Psychology of Ageing: From Mind to Society, by Palgrave Macmillan.