Psychological correlates of fatigue: Examining depression, perfectionism, and automatic negative thoughts

This study investigated whether depression, perfectionism or automatic negative thoughts would correlate with the symptomatology of fatigue in a non-clinical population. A structural model was developed to determine if depression or latent constructs of perfectionism and automatic negative thoughts would correlate with four components of fatigue (emotional distress, somatic symptomatology, general fatigue and cognitive difficulties). It was found that all aspects of fatigue were significantly correlated with depression and automatic negative thoughts, whereas only emotional distress and cognitive difficulties were correlated with perfectionism.