Fatigue in the general population- associations to age, sex, socioeconomic status, physical activity, sitting time and self-rated health: the northern Sweden MONICA study 2014
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Fatigue is widespread in the population and a common complaint in primary care. Little is known about prevalence of fatigue in the population and its predictors. We aimed to describe the pattern of fatigue in the general population and to explore the associations with age, sex, socioeconomic status, self-reported physical activity, sitting time and self-rated health. METHODS: One thousand, five hundred and fifty-seven out of 2500 invited subjects in the Northern Sweden MONICA Study 2014, aged 25-74 years, filled out the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20), consisting of four subscales: General fatigue (GF), Physical fatigue (PF), Reduced activity (RA) and Mental fatigue (MF). Questions regarding age, sex, socioeconomic status, physical activity, sitting time and self-rated health were also included. RESULTS: Higher age correlated significantly with lower fatigue scores for the GF and MF subscales. Women had higher fatigue scores than men on all subscales (p < 0.05). Among men, higher socioeconomic status was related to lower fatigue for the GF, PF and RA subscales (age adjusted p < 0.05). Among women, higher socioeconomic status was related to lower fatigue for the PF and MF subscales (age adjusted p < 0.05). Higher physical activity was connected to lower levels of fatigue for all subscales (age and sex adjusted p < 0.001) except for MF. Longer time spent sitting was also related to more fatigue on all subscales (age and sex adjusted p < 0.005) except for MF. Better self-rated health was strongly associated with lower fatigue for all subscales (age and sex adjusted p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Older, highly educated, physically active men, with little sedentary behavior are generally the least fatigued. Self-rated health is strongly related to fatigue. Interventions increasing physical exercise and reducing sedentary behavior may be important to help patients with fatigue and should be investigated in prospective studies.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In a representative sample of the general Swedish population, both mental and physical fatigue were accompanied by a reduced activity level.
“Similar conclusions were retrieved from a survey in a representative sample of the general Swedish population, who reported that both mental and physical fatigue were accompanied by a reduced activity level [14].”
From Vitamins and Minerals for Energy, Fatigue and Cognition: A Narrative Review of the Biochemical and Clinical Evidence (2020) · cites this paper as [14]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
What is self-rated health and why does it predict mortality? Towards a unified conceptual model
Jylhä, M. (2009) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.05.013 · Cited by 2,578 · see citing works
Diagnoses during follow-up of patients presenting with fatigue in primary care
Nijrolder, I., van der Windt, D., de Vries, H., & van der Horst, H. (2009) · Canadian Medical Association Journal · doi:10.1503/cmaj.090647 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Tardy, A.-L., Pouteau, E., Marquez, D., Yilmaz, C., & Scholey, A. (2020) · Nutrients · doi:10.3390/nu12010228 · Cited by 541 · see citing works
Reid, H., Ridout, A. J., Tomaz, S. A., Kelly, P., & Jones, N. (2022) · British Journal of Sports Medicine · doi:10.1136/bjsports-2021-104281 · Cited by 97 · see citing works
- Authors
- Engberg, I., Segerstedt, J., Waller, G., Wennberg, P., & Eliasson, M.
- Affiliations
- Umeå University (SE)
- Sunderby sjukhus (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Eliasson, Mats
- Venue
- BMC Public Health
- Published
- 2017-08-14
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 654-654
- ISSN
- 1471-2458 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5557471
- OpenAlex
- W2746944573
- Cited by
- 230
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 40 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 6
- FWCI
- 8.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- BMC Public Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- KTH Publication Database DiVA (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Norrbottens Läns Landsting
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Physical Activity and Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue
- Keywords
- fatigue, general population, physical activity, sedentary behavior, sitting time, socioeconomic status, sex differences, age, self-rated health, mental fatigue, physical fatigue, reduced activity, Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Age Factors, Aged, Cross-Sectional Studies, Fatigue, Mental Fatigue, Female, Health Status, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Population Surveillance, Prospective Studies, Sex Factors, Social Class, Sweden, Exercise, Prevalence, Sedentary Behavior, Self Report
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
