Understanding Patterns of Fatigue in Health and Disease Version 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding Patterns of Fatigue in Health and Disease
IRAS ID
317198
Contact name
Rosalind Adam
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Aberdeen
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 2 months, 2 days
Research summary
This feasibility study will investigate patient experiences of fatigue in depth, combining objective measures of sensed physiological parameters with patient reports and validated patient reported outcome measures. Patients will be recruited with three distinct conditions: myeloma; long COVID; and heart failure. A control group without any of these conditions will also be recruited.
Participants will participate in a longitudinal, Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) study, wearing sensors, and providing four times daily short self-reports of fatigue over a two-to-four week period (determined by the individual participant). They will complete validated fatigue, affect, and interoceptive awareness scores at baseline and at two weeks and participate in end of study telephone interviews with a Research Assistant.
Sensors will measure objective parameters including activity levels; heart rate; sleep; and posture (sitting/standing). Additional sensors (“beacons”) will measure participant’s movements and positioning within their own environment (position relative to the beacons – beacon location to be determined by participant placement ); environmental temperature; and light levels.
Data will be analysed using multilevel modelling and Machine Learning to detect patterns in the fatigue experiences and to compare fatigue measurements within individuals; between individuals with the same clinical condition; and between groups of individuals with different clinical conditions/controls.
This feasibility study will provide data that helps to determine:
• The utility and usefulness of different sensed parameters in understanding the fatigue experience
• The practicality and acceptability of collecting the proposed sensed and self-reported data and recruitment and retention rates (to inform a larger study)
• Whether there might be meaningful differences in fatigue between individuals and groups of individuals with distinct medical conditions
• Whether there is scope for a larger study into clinical “phenotypes” of fatigue (distinct classes of fatigue that might vary according to different combinations of physiological signatures, different patient descriptions/language used to describe the experience, diurnal variation, etc.)REC name
East of England - Cambridge East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/EE/0261
Date of REC Opinion
19 Oct 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion