The article "Assessing Fatigue After Traumatic Brain Injury: An Evaluation of the Barroso Fatigue Scale" by Dijkers and Bushnik published in volume 23, issue 1, of the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation was characterized by several inaccuracies and errors requiring clarification. First, the name of the instrument discussed is the HIV-Related Fatigue Scale, not the Barroso Fatigue Scale. The developer of the instrument, Julie Barroso, PhD, ANP, APRN, BC, FAAN, has never referred to it other than as the HIV-Related Fatigue Scale, and the authors erred in renaming it.

Second, the data reported in the article were collected after making several changes to the HIV-Related Fatigue Scale and applying it to a clinical population for which it had not been developed. The following changes to the original instrument were noted in the article: alteration of 2 items to refer to "traumatic brain injury" versus "HIV"; inclusion of a "not applicable" response choice for items that the subject population may not have engaged in for reasons other than fatigue. Inadvertently omitted was an instruction to participants who did not experience fatigue to complete the measure no further than a set of fatigue intensity questions. This change resulted in administration of the instrument to subjects who did not meet a threshold for experiencing fatigue. While these changes addressed the goals of the study we conducted, we did not make sufficiently clear the extent of the changes that were made. More important, we did not state clearly enough that differences in scale qualities observed in our study should not be generalized to the use of the HIV-Related Fatigue Scale for persons with HIV as described in the studies of the scale published by its developer.

Third, an editing error on page 8 of the article may give the impression that Item 13 of the HIV-Related Fatigue Scale asks whether a person has family and friends. As shown in Table 1 of the manuscript, Item 13 asks whether fatigue interferes with one's ability to visit or socialize with friends or family. On page 8, we referred to a subject's selecting as the response to Item 13 the "not applicable" option we created, not to the item itself.

Finally, the information provided in Table 1 allows one to re-create the HIV-Related Fatigue Scale, which is inconsistent with the author's request that the scale not be reprinted without permission. Other researchers and clinicians wishing to use the HIV-Related Fatigue Scale should contact Dr Barroso ([email protected]) for permission prior to its use.

The authors regret these errors and express apologies to Dr. Barroso for them.

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