Abstract
BackgroundWe are reporting on the development of a psychosocial screening tool for cancer patients. The tool was to be brief, at a relatively low reading level, capture psychological variables relevant to distress and health-related quality-of-life in cancer patients, possess good reliability and validity, and be free of copyright protection.MethodItem derivation is described, data on reliability and validity as well as norms are reported for three samples of cancer patients (n = 1057; n = 570, n = 101).ResultsThe resulting 21-item psychological screen for cancer (PSCAN) assesses perceived social support, desired social support, health-related quality-of-life, anxiety and depression. It has good psychometrics including high internal consistency (alpha averaging .83, and acceptable test-retest stability over 2 months (averaging r = .64). Validity has been established for content, construct and concurrent validity.ConclusionPSCAN is considered ready for use as a screening tool and also for following changes in patient distress throughout the cancer care trajectory. It is freely available to all interested non-profit users.
Highlights
We are reporting on the development of a psychosocial screening tool for cancer patients
A diagnosis of cancer is very emotionally threatening, may provoke anxiety or depression, and is difficult to live with because all aspects of life are overshadowed by the typical prognostic uncertainty [1,2,3]
It appears that men typically report less negative affect than women and that there is considerable variability in distress and QoL as a function of cancer type. This suggests an urgent need for the accrual of a larger sample including all cancer types such that sufficiently powered inferential tests can be conducted. The objective of this tool development process was to gather enough information so that readers could potentially make a decision to adopt the scale for their own use with cancer populations, knowing that adequate reliability and validity testing had been undertaken
Summary
We are reporting on the development of a psychosocial screening tool for cancer patients. The tool was to be brief, at a relatively low reading level, capture psychological variables relevant to distress and health-related quality-of-life in cancer patients, possess good reliability and validity, and be free of copyright protection. Psychological interventions for distress reduction can enhance quality-of-life, and help patients and families better cope [2,5,6] but distress often remains unrecognized and untreated [7]. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2005, 3:54 http://www.hqlo.com/content/3/1/54. A number of critical questions for clinical practice arise from these insights, namely which intervention works best, and which patients are needy and potentially responsive to a professional intervention. Researchers can help by extracting critical information from basic research for the explicit purpose of informing clinicians [8] and to ascertain best patient care
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