Chalder fatigue scale
The Chalder fatigue scale (sometimes known as the Chalder scale) is a symptom scale created by Trudie Chalder used to measure the severity of tiredness in fatiguing illnesses. It has been used by Esther Crawley in the PACE trial and in her paediatric research.
Questions[edit | edit source]
1. Do you have problems with tiredness?
2. Do you need to rest more?
3. Do you feel sleepy or drowsy?
4. Do you have problems starting things?
5. Do you lack energy?
6. Do you have less strength in your muscles?
7. Do you feel weak?
8. Do you have difficulties concentrating?
9. Do you make slips of the tongue when speaking?
10. Do you find it more difficult to find the right word?
11. How is your memory?
Risks and flaws[edit | edit source]
The Chalder fatigue scale has been criticized as not being a reliable scale for clinical or research settings for ME/CFS. Criticisms include:
- having a low ceiling in determining fatigue thus resulting in "a marked degree of overlap between the scores from the moderately and severely ill,"[1]
- questions are too general and will capture those with other fatiguing illnesses, e.g., question 4 correlates with self-rated measures of depression,[2]
- two alternative scoring methods are used, the bimodal (0-11) and Likert (0-33) score, which can generate contradictory findings
Notable studies[edit | edit source]
- 2017, Public Review - Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) Common Data Elements (CDE); Fatigue Subgroup Materials by David Cella, PhD (Chair), Mary Dimmock, Fred Friedberg, PhD, Jin-Mann Sally Lin, PhD, Luis Nacul, MD, PhD, and Leorey Saligan, RN, PhD
- 2011, PACE trial
- 1993, Development of a fatigue scale[3]
Learn more[edit | edit source]
- 2018, Analysis of the Chalder fatigue scale submitted by a team of Science for ME forum members to the NIH/CDC Common Data Elements review.
- Chalder fatigue scale
- ME analysis - The Chalder fatigue scale
- Fatigued by scales as outcome measures
See also[edit | edit source]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Goudsmit, EM; Stouten, B; Howes, S (2008), "Fatigue in myalgic encephalomyelitis", Bulletin of the IACFS/ME, 16 (3): 3-10
- ↑ Exploring the validity of the Chalder fatigue scale in chronic fatigue syndrome; Richard K Morriss, Alison J Wearden, Ricky Mullis; Journal of Psychosomatic Research , Volume 45 , Issue 5 , 411 - 417
- ↑ Chalder, T; Berelowitz, G; Pawlikowska, T; Watts, L; Wessely, S; Wright, D; Wallace, EP (1993), "Development of a fatigue scale", J Psychosom Res, 37: 147-153, PMID 8463991
