Palliative Care Research  2024;19(3):149-156

doi:10.2512/jspm.19.149

Development of a Concern Scale for Cancer Patients Receiving Outpatient Radiotherapy

Tomohiro HIASA 1

Affiliations

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Keywords

radiation therapy; cancer patients; concerns; scale development; outpatient visit

Country

Japan

Language

Japanese

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a scale that can measure the concerns of cancer patients undergoing outpatient radiation therapy. Method: First, items were created based on a review of the literature, and a draft scale was created by examining content validity using the Item-level Content Validity Index (I-CVI). In the main study, researcher conducted an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire survey on 400 cancer patients undergoing outpatient radiation therapy at five institutions, and examined the reliability and validity of the scale. Result: Exploratory factor analysis identified nine items with two factors (concern about living with cancer and concern about living with irradiation). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the entire scale was 0.848. The goodness of fit in confirmatory factor analysis showed GFI=0.930, AGFI=0.879, CFI=0.926 and SRMR=0.058. No correlation was observed with STAI Y-1, and a certain level of discriminant validity was confirmed. Conclusion: We generally confirmed the reliability and validity results of a concern scale for cancer patients receiving outpatient radiotherapy.