Psychometric assessment of four fatigue scales with a sample of rural cancer patients.

There are differences between rural and urban persons experiencing cancer that may make the experience of fatigue more difficult for rural cancer patients. There were no scale to measure fatigue that had been validated with rural cancer patients. The purpose of the present research was to study the psychometric properties of four fatigue scales for use with rural cancer patients. The four scales were the Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue Scale, the Fatigue Severity Scale, the Visual Analogue Scale for Fatigue, and the Rhoten Fatigue Scale. The four scales were mailed to 270 rural cancer patients, with 131 usable scales returned (48% return rate). Interitem correlations, Cronbach's alpha reliability, and factor analyses were performed on the four scales. Based on these analyses, the Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue Scale, the Fatigue Severity Scale, and the Visual Analogue Scale for Fatigue were judged to be adequate for use with rural cancer patients.