Development and Validation of the State-Trait Inventory of Cognitive Fatigue in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Objective To develop and validate a subjective measure of cognitive fatigue—the State-Trait Inventory of Cognitive Fatigue—in community-dwelling older adults. Design Scale development and test construction. Setting Community-dwelling older adults enrolled in a longitudinal cohort aging study. Participants Participants (N=175) were healthy, English-speaking, community-dwelling adults, age ≥65 years. Interventions Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures State-Trait Inventory of Cognitive Fatigue total, cognitive fatigue, motivation, mental effort, and boredom summation scores for both state and trait forms. Results Principal component analysis yielded the expected 4 components for both state and trait forms: cognitive fatigue, mental effort, motivation, and boredom. All components had good reliability. There was good convergent validity as measured by the strong positive relation between cognitive fatigue and a subjective measure of general fatigue, even after controlling for depressive symptoms. Greater subjective cognitive fatigue was associated with worse performance on measures thought to be more sensitive to aspects of executive functioning. Conclusions This study developed and established the psychometric properties of a new instrument for the subjective measurement of cognitive fatigue for use in community-dwelling older adults. The State-Trait Inventory of Cognitive Fatigue's relatively brief administration time (<10min; mean, 5.6±2.9) and strong psychometric properties support its utility in both research and clinical settings. Future studies should establish the psychometric properties of this scale in other populations and examine its predictive utility for relevant clinical outcomes.