Fatigue in Iranian Patients with Neurological Conditions: an assessment with Persian Fatigue Severity Scale

Background: Fatigue is an important problem in patients with multiple sclerosis and stroke. This article aimed to 1) compare self-perceived level of fatigue 2) test and describe aspects of reliability and validity of the Persian fatigue severity scale in a large population of adult patients with neurological conditions. Method and Material: 113 patients [30 multiple sclerosis, 83 stroke] and 90 healthy subjects were enrolled. The fatigue severity scale questionnaire was translated and adapted; back-translated, pretested, and finally tested. A fatigue visual analog scale was also recorded. Test-retest was analyzed with one week interval. Results: The mean fatigue severity scale scores for patients with multiple sclerosis was significantly greater than stroke patients (p =0.001). The analysis of discriminative validity demonstrated that the Persian fatigue severity scale scores were statistically significant between healthy subjects and patients (p= 0.002 and p