Open AccessPrinciples of questionnaires’ validation on the example the Caregiver Quality of Life-Cancer (CQOL-C) questionnaire
Author(s) -
Marta Gawlik,
Donata Kurpas
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
medical science pulse
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2544-1620
pISSN - 2544-1558
DOI - 10.5604/01.3001.0003.3171
Subject(s) - quality of life (healthcare) , equivalence (formal languages) , medicine , scale (ratio) , adaptation (eye) , psychology , population , greek language , quality (philosophy) , nursing , applied psychology , medical education , environmental health , linguistics , philosophy , physics , epistemology , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , history , classics
In Poland, the statistics on the number of people diagnosed with cancer reveal an increase in the enormity of the problem. In consequence, these include an increase in the number of people taking care of cancer patients at homes. There are currently no available Polish version questionnaire, which allows the assessment of the quality of life for home caregivers. English-language questionnaire examining the quality of life of cancer patients’ caregivers has been developed by the team supervised by M.A.Weitzner and has been widely used since 1999. It contains 35 questions, which are aimed at assessing the level of functioning on four levels: mental, emotional, spiritual and financial. The validation of this questionnaire fulfils the guidelines of translation and validation for the questionnaires, which are deterrmined in a document about the process of translation and adaptation of the instruments of the World Health Organization. Cultural adaptation was an indispensable element for validation, which has met four criteria: allegiance to the translation of the questionnaire into Polish language, the criterion of functional equivalence, the principle of the facade equivalence and the criterion of accuracy reconstruction. The main goal of therapeutic teams in the palliative care is continuous enhancement of their patients and families life quality, including home environments. Both the Polish validation and the application of the questionnaire assessing the life quality of the cancer patients’ caregivers will make it possible to focus on the issues and needs of that population better. The scale may become a useful research tool for evaluation and prevention of the burnout syndrome experienced among family members providing care for cancer patients. Polish version of the CQOL-C questionnaire has met all the validation criteria and can be applied by the therapeutic teams in the palliative care.