The Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory validation and fatigue assessment in Iranian distance education students

Fatigue has been recognized as a condition that includes physical as well as psychological components. Fatigue is a particularly appropriate symptom-specific measure for young adult university students. During the college years, young adults experience multiple intrapersonal, interpersonal, academic, and financial challenges. Despite considerable attention to fatigue in acute and chronic illnesses, little is known about fatigue in a healthy population. Fatigue is generally described and measured as a multidimensional phenomenon. The present study attempted to determine the rate and severity of fatigue in distance-based education sample of Iranian students by cultural adjustment of appropriate instruments. Target population was the students of Iranian distance education university who were recruited as subject by simple randomize sampling method (No=300). The Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI) and the fatigue severity scale (FSS) are used as measurement instruments. In order to cultural adjustment and validity in Persian language, each instrument translated to Persian by forward-backward method. The internal consistency reliability of the 20 items of the MFI and 9 items of the FSS was 0.8510 and 0.8519 respectively. The dimensions were highly correlated with the MFI composite score, with all r >.70. Results showed that the mean score for MFI was 10.05 ± 2.44. The mean score for fatigue severity scale was 3.54 ± 1.25. MFI and FSS scores showed significance correlation coefficient (r = 0.611 and p<;0.01). In conclusion, these analyses support the reliability and validity of the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory and Fatigue Severity Scale as Persian version in young students. Although the severity of fatigue among subjects was less, but the rate of fatigue was more than mild state. Testing the MFI and FSS in populations of young adults, including non-university students and young adults with are necessary development steps in the validation process for these scales.