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Screening for psychological distress in Turkish cancer patients
Author(s) -
Özalp Elvan,
Cankurtaran Eylem Sahin,
Soygür Haldun,
Özdemir Geyik Pinar,
Jacobsen Paul B.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
psycho‐oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.41
H-Index - 137
eISSN - 1099-1611
pISSN - 1057-9249
DOI - 10.1002/pon.1059
Subject(s) - hospital anxiety and depression scale , receiver operating characteristic , distress , medicine , quality of life (healthcare) , cancer , anxiety , turkish , depression (economics) , psychological distress , oncology , physical therapy , clinical psychology , psychiatry , nursing , linguistics , philosophy , economics , macroeconomics
The distress thermometer (DT) is a useful measure of psychological distress in cancer patients. Our objective was to investigate distress impact on oncology patients in Turkey and determine the optimal cut‐off score on the DT for identifying clinically significant distress. One hundred and eighty two cancer patients completed the DT, Problem List (PL), and Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS), The European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ‐C30 version 3.0). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses of DT scores yielded an estimated area under the curve of 0.66 when compared to the HADS cut‐off score, suggesting the DT is an effective scale to discriminate between classified cancer patients both with and without clinically significant distress. The DT cut‐off score of 4 yielded the optimal combination of sensitivity and specificity. Scores on the DT were moderately correlated to the HADS ( p <0.01) and EORTC QLQ‐C30. Based on the significant correlations, we conclude that the DT has acceptable criterion validity. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.