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Psychometric properties of the QLQ‐C30 (version 3.0) in a sample of ambulatory Cretan cancer patients
Author(s) -
KOUKOULI S.,
STAMOU A.,
ALEGAKIS A.,
GEORGOULIAS V.,
SAMONIS G.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
european journal of cancer care
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.849
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1365-2354
pISSN - 0961-5423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2354.2008.00934.x
Subject(s) - medicine , ambulatory , quality of life (healthcare) , physical therapy , cancer , intervention (counseling) , colorectal cancer , breast cancer , psychometrics , reliability (semiconductor) , clinical psychology , psychiatry , power (physics) , physics , nursing , quantum mechanics
The aim of the present study was to test the psychometric properties of the Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ‐C30, version 3.0) in a sample of ambulatory cancer patients, mostly low educated and coming from rural areas of the island of Crete. The sample consisted of 188 lung, breast and colorectal cancer patients. Their quality of life (QoL) has been evaluated twice: before and after the first therapeutic intervention. Alpha coefficients ranged from 0.88 to 0.98. Inter‐scale correlations were more substantial between the physical, role and fatigue scales. Mean score differences between groups of patients with different performance status (PS) were statistically significant for most of the sub‐scales. Instead the patients with stable PS after treatment showed worse functioning in five from the nine sub‐scales. For those whose PS has deteriorated, their subjective evaluation indicated deterioration only for physical, role and social functioning. In this sample of mainly ambulatory cancer patients, the instrument has high coefficients of reliability and good clinical validity. However, the results related to its sensitivity are not very consistent. It has proven able to detect clinically significant changes after the therapeutic intervention only for the patients who deteriorated over time and for three specific dimensions of QoL: physical, role and social functioning.