ABSTRACT
Objectives
The Pittsburgh Fatigability Scale (PFS) is a self-administered 10-item tool to measure physical and mental fatigability in older adults. The aim of the current study was to validate the psychometric properties of the traditional Chinese version of PFS (TC-PFS).
Methods
We recruited 114 community-dwellingolder adults, where 35 were diagnosed with late-life depression (LLD), 26 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 53 were cognitively normal (CN) from a larger community study of older adults. Statistical analyses were done separately for TC-PFS Physical and Mental subscales. Factor analysis was used for reliability, Cronbach’s alpha for internal consistency, Pearson’s correlation for construct validity, and group comparison for discriminative validity.
Results
Factor analysis revealed a two-factor structure for both the TC-PFS Physical and Mental subscales with high reliability (α = 0.89 and 0.89, respectively). Patients with LLD had the highest PFS scores, with 80.0% and 82.9% classified as having greater physical and mental fatigability. For concurrent validity, we found moderate associations with the vitality and physical functioning subscales of the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey. For convergent validity, TC-PFS showed moderate association with emotional-related psychometrics, particularly for the Physical subscale in those with LLD. In contrast, TC-PFS Mental subscale showed correlations with cognitive function, particularly in the MCI group.
Conclusions
Our results indicate that the TC-PFS is a valid instrument to measure perceived physical and mental fatigability in older Taiwanese adults.
Clinical implications: Perceived fatigability reflects the underlying physical, mental or cognitive function in older adults with or without depression.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge Jinghui Ju, MBBBS, MPH for her technical assistance in the back-translation of the traditional Chinese version of the Pittsburgh Fatigability Scale.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Authors Contributions
CL and CKC have made substantial contributions to conception and design, analysis and interpretation of data, and drafting the manuscript. NWG and TG contributed to analyzing, interpreting, drafting and critical review and revision of the manuscript. YCW, YLC and YCS conducted surveys and collected the data from participants. CMH has a role for neuropsychological tasks design. All authors read and appr
Ethics declarations
All tasks in studies from human participants met the ethical standards of the Helsinki declaration and the amendments or general ethical standards. The institutional review board from Chang Gung Memorial Hospital approved the study (IRB number: 201600269B0 and 201600580B0). The inform and consent were obtained from each participant.