Unraveling Fatigue in Hemodialysis Patients: Comparing Retrospective Reports to Real-Time Assessments With an mHealth Experienced Sampling Method

Fatigue is prevalent among hemodialysis (HD) patients and associated with depressive mood. To advance our understanding of its etiology and develop appropriate treatments, reliable measurement instruments are needed. However, conventional fatigue and mood questionnaires are prone to bias because of their retrospective nature and may misrepresent or overestimate actual symptom experience (i.e., the so-called memory-experience gap). Experience sampling methodology (ESM) overcomes this limitation through repeated real-time assessments in patients' natural environment, thereby providing reliable and ecologically valid data.

Source: Journal of Pain and Symptom Management - July 5, 2020 Category: Palliative Care Authors: Astrid D.H. Brys, Frank Stifft, Caroline M. Van Heugten, Maurizio Bossola, Giovanni Gambaro, Bert Lenaert Tags: Original Article Source Type: research