Els van de Vijver

89 Scientists from Chicago and Texas performed a cross-sectional study among 70 children with IBD and 157 healthy controls and their parents.(6) They categorized fatigue as general fatigue (e.g., “feeling tired”), sleep/rest fatigue (e.g., “feeling tired when waking up”) or cognitive fatigue (e.g., “attention problem”)(6) based on the PedsQL Multidimensional Fatigue Scale.(11) General fatigue and sleep/rest fatigue were more frequently observed in paediatric IBD patients than in healthy control subjects, even when their disease was in remission. Differences in cognitive fatigue were not observed.(6) A Canadian team from Toronto conducted in-depth interviews among 80 children and adolescents who were purposively selected for their variation in age and condition and found that children and teenagers with IBD commonly mentioned that “exhaustion” and “malaise” (“having no energy and being tired”) had large impacts on their lives.(13) A Finnish research team evaluated sleep problems and daytime tiredness in 160 adolescents by both a parent proxy-reported survey (CBCL) and a self-reported questionnaire (Youth Self Report, YSR).(17) Twenty-five percent of parents reported that their adolescent child had trouble sleeping. This was a significantly greater percentage than was found among the parents of healthy controls. Overall, parents of adolescents with IBD more commonly reported sleeping during the day and night and overtiredness than did parents of healthy controls. The self-reported questionnaire did not confirm the high prevalence of sleep- related problems among IBD patients when compared to healthy subjects (11% vs 16%).(16) A Swiss research team evaluated 110 adolescents with IBD who were included in the national IBD Cohort Study.(7) They assessed fatigue as physical activity using the KIDSCREEN 27. Physical well-being (e.g., “feeling fit, being physical active, able to run”) was only moderately disturbed in IBD patients compared to healthy controls.(7) A German research group conducted the only study that evaluated fatigue in an objective manner with a wearable device. They assessed physical activity using the SenseWear Pro2 armband (a portable motion sensor) and reported a trend towards a shorter duration of physical activity and significantly prolonged sleep duration in patients with mild IBD compared to controls, but there were no statistically significant differences.(8) Systematic review: fatigue 89