Instruments for measuring fatigue in patients with brain tumours: protocol for a COSMIN--based systematic review

Cancer-related fatigue occurs at high rates and can harm patients' quality of life and even reduce survival, especially in patients with brain tumours. Many measures have been developed to assess this condition, but there have been no systematic reviews evaluating the metrological properties of these tools, and it is difficult to determine the measures with optimal properties and the conditions under which they should be applied. Therefore, we need to collect existing evidence and choose the most reasonable instrument. Our aim is to identify all instruments used to measure fatigue in patients with brain tumours and identify gaps in them by assessing measurement properties and methodological quality.

This protocol follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 checklist. Future systematic review reports will be based on the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) guidelines and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and PRISMA 2020 statement guidelines. Five databases (PubMed, CINAHL, PsycARTICLES, Embase and Ovid MEDLINE) will be searched between 1 January 2025 and 31 January 2025 to screen for instruments assessing fatigue in patients with brain tumours. Two researchers will independently complete literature screening, data extraction and literature evaluation, and any differences will be resolved through discussion with the participation of a third researcher. The methodological quality and instrument characteristics of included studies will be assessed according to COSMIN risk of bias guidelines.

Ethical approval is not applicable. We will disseminate the findings from the study at national and/or international conferences and in a peer-reviewed journal in the fields of oncology nursing and/or neurosurgery.

CRD42024530318.