Psychosocial consequences of cancer cachexia: the development of an item bank

Hane, Hanspeter, Obeholzer, Rolf, Walker, Jochen, Hopkinson, Jane B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3915-9815, de Wolf-Linder, Susanne and Strasser, Florian 2013. Psychosocial consequences of cancer cachexia: the development of an item bank. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 46 (6) , pp. 795-806. 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2013.01.008

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Abstract

Context: Cancer cachexia syndrome (CCS) is often accompanied by psychosocial consequences (PSC). To alleviate PSC, a systematic assessment method is required. Currently, few assessment tools are available (e.g., Functional Assessment of Anorexia/Cachexia Therapy). There is no systematic assessment tool that captures the PSC of CCS. Objectives: To develop a pilot item bank to assess the PSC of CCS. Methods: A total of 132 questions, generated from patient answers in a previous study, were reduced to 121 items by content analysis and evaluation by multidisciplinary experts (doctor, nutritionists, and nurses). In our two-step, cross-sectional study, patients, judged by staff to have PSC of CCS, were included, and the questions were randomly allocated to the patients. Questions were evaluated for understandability and triggering emotions, and patients were asked to provide a response using a four-point Likert scale. Subsequently, problematic questions were revised, reformulated, and retested. Results: A total of 20 patients with a variety of tumor types participated. Of the 121 questions, 31 had to be reformulated after Step 1 and were retested in Step 2, after which seven were again evaluated as not being perfectly comprehensible. In Step 1, 22 questions were found to trigger emotions, but no item required remodeling. Item performance using the Likert scale revealed no consistent floor or ceiling effects. Our final pilot question bank comprised 117 questions. Conclusion: The final item bank contains questions that are understood and accepted by the patients. This item bank now needs to be developed into a measurement tool that groups items into domains and can be used in future research studies.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Healthcare Sciences
Subjects:	R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0254 Neoplasms. Tumors. Oncology (including Cancer)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Cancer cachexia syndrome; psychosocial consequences; item bank; assessment tool
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0885-3924
Last Modified:	25 Oct 2022 08:42
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/54029

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