Abstract
PurposeThe Singapore Caregiver Quality of Life Scale (SCQOLS) was recently developed and validated in two languages - English and Chinese. The total and domain scores are scaled to range from 0 to 100. However, the scale is not at the interval-ratio level of measurement. To facilitate interpretation, we established the percentiles of the scale’s total and domain scores among family caregivers of patients with advanced cancers and demonstrate the effect size in terms of differences in relation to caregiver and patient characteristics.MethodsData were drawn from a cross-sectional survey of family caregivers of patients with stage III or IV solid cancers in Singapore. Quantile regression was used to estimate the percentiles in relation to caregiver and patient characteristics.ResultsParticipants in adjacent categories of patient’s performance status and caregiver’s having other family members to share caregiving duties differed by 3 to 5 points in median quality of life total score and most domain scores (each Bonferroni-adjusted P, P[B], < 0.05). Ethnicity was associated with the Physical Well-being and Experience & Meaning domain scores (each P[B] < 0.05), with variable direction and magnitude. Education was associated with Mental Well-being and Financial Well-being (each P[B] < 0.05). Equations and examples for calculation of the percentiles are provided.ConclusionPercentiles and effect size estimates are provided to facilitate interpretation of the SCQOLS.
Highlights
Cancer is a disease that imposes major burden on patients and on their family caregivers
We report our use of the quantile regression approach to the estimation of reference values for Singapore Caregiver Quality of Life Scale (SCQOLS)
We found no evidence of difference between the two language versions in any of the five percentiles in the SCQOLS total or domain scores
Summary
Cancer is a disease that imposes major burden on patients and on their family caregivers. There has been a shortage of caregiver quality of life (QOL) measurement scales [1, 2]. Our qualitative study of family caregivers of advanced cancer patients in Singapore, a multi-ethnic society in South-East Asia, has shown substantial differences between the Recently we developed and validated the Singapore Caregiver Quality of Life Scale (SCQOLS) among family caregivers of patients with advanced cancers in Singapore [2]. The SCQOLS consists of five domains and 51 items in total, namely Physical Well-being (12 items), Mental Well-being (10 items), Experience & Meaning (12 items), Impact on Daily Life (13 items) and Cheung et al Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes. We had demonstrated, using an equivalence study approach and having conditioned on demographic and health covariates, that the two language versions gave mean scores within an equivalence margin of +/− 0.5 standard deviation [5]
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