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Prevalence of fatigue symptoms and correlations in the general adult population

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Abstract

This study sought to clarify the prevalence and associated factors of subjective fatigue symptoms, by analyzing epidemiological data for a sample of the Japanese population. Data from 1224 individuals (539 men and 685 women) aged =20 years were subsequently analyzed. Prevalence of fatigability was 17.2% (n = 211) and that of residual fatigue was 13.6% (n = 167), with women showing significantly higher prevalence of both symptoms than men (fatigability: men 12.6% vs women 20.9%, ?2 = 14.43, P = 0.001; residual fatigue: men 10.0% vs women 16.5%, P = 0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that being female, nonrestorative sleep, decreased quality of life, and stress showed significant positive associations with fatigability and residual fatigue. However, a significant positive association was found between depressed mood and fati-gability, and short sleep duration and long working hours (=9 h) were specifically significantly positively associated with residual fatigue. Sleep hygiene instruction and a psychiatric approach are needed to reduce fatigue in the Japanese population.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychophysiology, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Waseda University, Japan

    Sayaka Aritake & Kazuo Mishima

  2. Division of Sports Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Waseda University, Japan

    Sayaka Aritake

  3. Department of Public Health, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

    Yoshitaka Kaneita, Takeshi Munezawa & Takashi Ohida

  4. Department of Psychiatry, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

    Makoto Uchiyama

  5. Department of Sleep and Respiratory Medicine, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

    Tsuneto Akashiba

  6. Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Oita University, Oita, 879-5593, Japan

    Yoshitaka Kaneita

  7. Department of Public Health, Showa University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

    Tadahiro Ohtsu

  8. Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume, Japan

    Naohisa Uchimura

  9. Department of Social Medicine, Hirosaki University Graduate School of Medicine, Hirosaki, Japan

    Shigeyuki Nakaji

Authors
  1. Sayaka Aritake
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  2. Yoshitaka Kaneita
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  3. Tadahiro Ohtsu
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  4. Makoto Uchiyama
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  7. Naohisa Uchimura
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  8. Shigeyuki Nakaji
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  9. Takeshi Munezawa
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  10. Takashi Ohida
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yoshitaka Kaneita.

Additional information

This was not an industry-supported study. The authors have indicated no financial conflict of interest.

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Aritake, S., Kaneita, Y., Ohtsu, T. et al. Prevalence of fatigue symptoms and correlations in the general adult population. Sleep Biol. Rhythms 13, 146–154 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1111/sbr.12099

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/sbr.12099

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