Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Peter Feys, Hasselt University, Belgium
- Second opponent: Researcher Guro Lindviksmoen Astrup, Oslo University Hospital,
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor II Sigbjørn Dimmen, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Emeritus Per Nortvedt, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Anners Lerdal, University of Oslo
Summary
Post-stroke fatigue (PSF) is a highly prevalent condition which negatively impacts the lives of stroke survivors. Currently, there is a lack of evidence-based treatments for PSF, and a major barrier to further progress is the absence of a high-quality instrument to measure and diagnose PSF. The overarching aim of this thesis was to develop and evaluate a new patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) for fatigue in stroke patients.
This thesis adhered to PROM development guidelines, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. We found that existing fatigue PROMs used in stroke populations have significant shortcomings and do not comply with the best practice guidelines and high standards set by regulators. As a result, we developed a new PROM specifically targeted for measuring PSF.
We explored stroke survivors and health professionals’ experiences with fatigue, which further led to the formulation of a definition and a conceptual framework of PSF. These results guided the creation of items in our new PROM. The measurement properties of the instrument were then tested in additional studies with stroke patients. We found that our new PROM exhibited strong content validity, structural validity, and internal consistency.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.