Development And Psychometric Testing Of Two Disease-specific Instrument To Measure Supportive Care Needs For Patients With Esophageal/Colorectal Cancer

Objective Explore the connotation of specific supportive care needs for patients with esophageal or colorectal cancer,so as to develop disease specific supportive care needs scales for esophageal or colorectal cancer patients(hereinafter referred to as SSCNS-E or SSCNS-CR)in China,and evaluate its psychometrics properties.Methods The item pools about two types of specific supportive care needs scales were generated based on qualitative interview and literature review.Intial items were selected and modified according to the result of expert content validity evaluation and preliminary experiment.Then the clinical test versions of two types of scales were established.A convenience sample of 270 esophageal cancer patients as well as 250 colorectal cancer patients were enrolled to complete the corresponding scales(the clinical test versions),respectively.A total of 263 and 244 effective questionnaires were taken back.Items from two types of scales were selected again through the methods of correlation coefficient,t test,Cronbach's ? coefficient,discrete tendency and factor analysis.The internal consistency reliability of two scales were also examined.The convergent validity of two scales were examined with the general module of Nursing Professional Social Support Need Scale(hereinafter referred to as NPSSNS),the Function Assessment of Cancer Therapy Esophageal Cancer Subscale(hereinafter referred to as FACT-E)/the Function Assessment of Cancer Therapy Colorectal Cancer Subscale(hereinafter referred to as FACT-CR).The Discriminant validity of two scales were evaluated by comparing the patients of different economic condition or in different time since diagnosis.Through the above steps,the clinical application versions of SSCNS-E and SSCNS-CR were developed.Result The SSCNS-E(the clinical application version)contained 12 items,the Cronbach's ? coefficients was 0.799.The SSCNS-CR(the clinical application version)contained 17 items,the Cronbach's ? coefficients was 0.776.The I-CVI and S-CVI/Ave of two types of scales were both 1.Convergent validity test found the scores of SSCNS-E has a significant correlation with the scores of the general module of NPSSNS,the FACT-E(P<0.05).The scores of SSCNS-CR also has a significant correlation with the scores of the general module of NPSSNS,the FACT-CR(P<0.05).Discriminant validity test found that patients with lower monthly income reported higher specific supportive care needs scores when comparing with those of patients with higher monthly income.Patients who had been diagnosed with esophageal or colorectal cancer in the last month were more likely to report supportive care needs than those who diagnosed more than one years.Conclusion After preliminary psychometric testing,the two types of disease-specific supportive care needs scales has good validity and reliability,could provide an reference for medical staff to targeted assess the supportive care needs of patients with esophageal or colorectal cancer.