Daily patterns of fatigue after subarachnoid haemorrhage: an ecological momentary assessment study.
Elisabeth A De Vries, Majanka H Heijenbrok-Kal, Fop Van Kooten and 5 others
PMID 37853923WHAT IT FOUND
After subarachnoid haemorrhage, patients’ fatigue often rose across the day and was higher on working days than weekends.
Fatigue also varied between people, so one-time questionnaire scores may miss daily patterns.
Key findings
01Fatigue rose across the day and levelled off toward the end of the day.
02In the adjusted model, higher burden of fatigue and working days were associated with higher momentary fatigue, while mood, smoking, age, sex and trait fatigue were not.
03Three daily fatigue patterns were identified, and the increasing-pattern group had greater burden of fatigue and worse mood than the stable-low group.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only 42 of 98 eligible patients participated, and one was excluded, so the findings may not represent all patients after subarachnoid haemorrhage. No formal sample size calculation was performed. Mood, sleep and fatigue burden were measured once per day, so momentary associations with fatigue could not be tested. The study described patterns and associations in a small group; it did not test whether changing activity timing or fatigue management improves fatigue. Subgroup analyses had few participants per group, so clinical characteristics that might explain patterns could not be examined.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that changing activity timing or fatigue management will reduce fatigue. This study measured daily fatigue patterns and associations; it did not test an intervention.