Figure 131-4

Fatigue assessed as multidimensional fatigue impact-20 scale score differences (means and 95% confidence intervals) between non-cirrhotic patients with chronic liver disease (n = 489) (NC), and patients with compensated liver cirrhosis (n = 391) (CC), decompensated liver cirrhosis (n = 84) (DC), and transplanted liver patients (n = 186) (LTX). Differences are adjusted for gender, age, educational level, etiology, use of liver disease medication, use of psychopharmaca, and comorbidity (reproduced from van der Plas et al. (2003) with permission). Positive values indicate increased and negative values decreased fatigue scores compared to controls (NC, non-cirrhotic patients with chronic liver disease). This figure illustrates that fatigue is increased mainly in patients with decompensated and not compensated cirrhosis compared to patients with chronic liver disease without cirrhosis (NC). Patients having received a liver transplant have decreased fatigue scores compared to NC.* Scale score of subgroup is significantly different (p < 0.05) from scale score of controls (NC). NC, non-cirrhotic patients with chronic liver disease; CC, compensated cirrhosis; DC, decompensated cirrhosis; LTX, liver transplantation; GF, general fatigue; PHF, physical fatigue; RA, reduction in activity; RM, reduction in motivation; MF, mental fatigue. @ 2003 van der Plas et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. Open Access Article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article’s original URL (http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471–230X/3/33)