Despite the pervasiveness of fatigue
in patients with HF, little research has
concentrated on this phenomenon.
Given the importance of symptom status
to patients and the value of symptom
status as an indicator of the effectiveness
of clinical therapies to clinicians,
it is vital that research efforts are
directed toward understanding fatigue.
The current study is novel in that we
used a multivariate model to determine
correlates of fatigue and demonstrated
the multifactorial nature of fatigue
in this population. Both clinical and
psychological variables were important
correlates of fatigue: maximal workload,
physical and emotional health
scores, and depression were independent
correlates of fatigue. In addition,
we found that approximately one-half
of the study participants experienced
fatigue when compared with a healthy
adult population utilizing the same
measure.11 Similar prevalence was also
reported in a cohort of older women
with HF in the United States4 and in
an elderly cohort of men and women
with HF in Sweden.