Arthur Hartz

Arthur J. Hartz, MD, PhD, practices Epidemiology and Observation Medicine. He is a professor and research director for the Department of Family Medicine at the College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. One of his research interests is fatigue.

Awards

• 2002, Quality in Family Medicine Professorship, at the College of Medicine, University of Iowa.

Iowa Fatigue Scale

The Iowa Fatigue Scale (IFS) is a eleven question patient survey used to measure fatigue severity in primary care settings. It was developed by in 2003 by Arthur Hartz, Suzanne E. Bentler, and David Watson at the University of Iowa.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee

Dr. Hartz served as a voting member of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee from 04/01/07 to 04/01/11.

Notable studies

• 2005, Prospective observational study of treatments for unexplained chronic fatigue

  Abtract-"BACKGROUND: Unexplained chronic fatigue is a frequent complaint in primary care. A prospective observational study design was used to evaluate whether certain commonly used therapies for unexplained chronic fatigue may be effective. METHOD: Subjects with unexplained chronic fatigue of unknown etiology for at least 6 months were recruited from the Wisconsin Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Association, primary care clinics, and community chronic fatigue syndrome presentations. The primary outcome measure was change in a 5-question fatigue score from 6 months to 2 years. Self-reported interventions tested included prescribed medications, non-prescribed supplements and herbs, lifestyle changes, alternative therapies, and psychological support. Linear regression analysis was used to test the association of each therapy with the outcome measure after adjusting for statistically significant prognostic factors. RESULTS: 155 subjects provided information on fatigue and treatments at baseline and follow-up. Of these subjects, 87% were female and 79% were middle-aged. The median duration of fatigue was 6.7 years. The percentage of users who found a treatment helpful was greatest for coenzyme Q10 (69% of 13 subjects), dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) (65% of 17 subjects), and ginseng (56% of 18 subjects). Treatments at 6 months that predicted subsequent fatigue improvement were vitamins (p = .08), vigorous exercise (p = .09), and yoga (p = .002). Magnesium (p = .002) and support groups (p = .06) were strongly associated with fatigue worsening from 6 months to 2 years. Yoga appeared to be most effective for subjects who did not have unclear thinking associated with the fatigue. CONCLUSION: Certain alternative therapies for unexplained chronic fatigue, especially yoga, deserve testing in randomized controlled trials."

• 2003, Measuring fatigue severity in primary care patients

  Abtract-"Objective: We developed a new instrument to measure fatigue that synthesized information from existing instruments. Methods: 35 candidate items and 4 formats for a new fatigue scale were obtained from 15 previously developed instruments. A new scale was developed using factor analysis on a data set of 409 primary care patients and validated on a sample of 816 additional subjects. Results: Different formats for obtaining information about a given fatigue item gave similar results. The new 11 item scale contained four subscales: cognitive, fatigue, energy and productivity. Correlations between the four subscales ranged from .49 to .66. Patients with a higher fatigue score were much more likely to have lower health status, greater depression and more somatic symptoms. Conclusion: This new instrument may be useful in primary care and epidemiological studies to screen and monitor patients for fatigue severity and type.

• 1999, Prognostic Factors for Persons With Idiopathic Chronic Fatigue

Online presence

• PubMed
• ResearchGate
• University of Iowa listing of Arthur Hartz

See also

• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee

etiology The cause of origin, especially of a disease.

randomized controlled trial (RCT) - A trial in which participants are randomly assigned to two groups, with one group receiving the treatment being studied and a control or comparison group receiving a sham treatment, placebo, or comparison treatment.

cognition Thought processes, including attention, reasoning, and memory.

somatic symptoms Physical or bodily symptoms. May be used to mean bodily symptoms that are not the result of a known physical or biological illness.

somatic symptoms Physical or bodily symptoms. May be used to mean bodily symptoms that are not the result of a known physical or biological illness.

somatic An adjective relating to the physical body or physical symptoms. It is often contrasted with the adjective "psychological", which refers to the human mind or mental symptoms. In biology, "somatic cells" refer to all the cells of the body, except those which form an egg or sperm.

somatic symptom disorder A psychiatric term to describe an alleged condition whereby a person's thoughts somehow cause physical symptoms. The actual existence of such a condition is highly controversial, due to a lack of scientific evidence. It is related to other psychiatric terms, such as "psychosomatic", "neurasthenia", and "hysteria". Older terms include "somatization", "somatoform disorder", and "conversion disorder". Such terms refer to a scientifically-unsupported theory that claims that a wide range of physical symptoms can be created by the human mind, a theory which has been criticized as "mind over matter" parapsychology, a pseudoscience.