Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 25, 2026

The Treadmill Fatigue Test: A Simple, High-throughput Assay of Fatigue-like Behavior for the Mouse
Published on: May 31, 2016
Measurement of fatigue in people with cancer
1School of Nursing at Saint Louis University in MO, USA. wuh@slu.edu
Purpose/Objectives:
To evaluate the quality of existing instruments measuring cancer-related fatigue (CRF).
Data Sources:
Nursing and medical literature.
Data Synthesis:
Although fatigue is highly prevalent among patients with cancer and adversely affects their quality of life, CRF often is unrecognized and untreated. The instruments available to measure CRF have numerous limitations. Many have been generated from investigators' observations, not actual experiences described by patients. Others operationalize different definitions of fatigue or differ in dimensionality, which leads to limited reliability and validity testing.
Conclusions:
All of the instruments in this review need further study of their psychometric properties. Qualitative studies of CRF from the patients' perspective are needed to develop better instruments.
Implications For Nursing Practice:
Nurses need to increase their knowledge of assessing CRF to intervene and improve the quality of life for patients with cancer.
Related Concept Videos
Muscle Recovery and Fatigue
Fatigue
Fatigue Strength of Concrete
Cancer Survival Analysis

