Table 2 Characteristics of an ideal fatigue assessment tool (Adapted from Whitehead, 2009 [42])

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