Abstract
The aim of the study was to clarify the charac-teristics of fatigue status in Chinese adolescents. 1018 adolescents (490 males, 528 females) aged 12 or 15 years in Jixi city were enrolled. Between May and September 2009, fatigue status was investigated using a questionnaire devised by ourselves, which consisted of 4 physical and 4 mental fatigue items. These questions were scored from 0 to 3 based on the frequency of an item occurring, given as the average of the past one month, and the fatigue scores were calculated. Lifestyle issues such as daily sleep duration, feeling of refreshment in the morning after wake-up, extracurricular sports activity, and breakfast intake, and a physical examination such as height, weight, and waist circumference were also investigated. Physical and mental fatigue scores were significantly higher in subjects aged 15 yrs old than in those aged 12 yrs old in both genders. These scores in females were significantly higher than those in males at the age of 15 yrs. Multivariate regression analysis showed that total (physical plus mental) fatigue scores were associated with female gender and various lifestyles such as unrefreshed wake-up feeling, poor extracurricular sports activity, and more frequent skipping of breakfast. However, body mass index and waist circumference were not associated with total fatigue scores.
Highlights
At present, fatigue is a common social problem both in adults and in children, especially in developed countries [1]
Among several types of fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), defined by intractable physical and mental fatigue lasting more than 6 months with a number of accompanying symptoms, has been most vigorously investigated [2,3]
Increasing attention has been paid to fatigue other than CFS in the community of healthy adolescents and children, because fatigue may sometimes disturb their daily activities [11]
Summary
Fatigue is a common social problem both in adults and in children, especially in developed countries [1]. The prevalence of persistent fatigue in healthy adolescents has been well investigated in western countries [8,9,10,12,13], the reported prevalence has differed widely among studies due to different study designs. There have been no large-scale cohort studies about the actual conditions of fatigue, as far as we know, in healthy Chinese adolescents. This fact led us to investigate the present fatigue status in healthy Chinese adolescents, especially in relation to their lifestyle
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