Development of Quality of Life Measurement for Cancer Patients

Tae, Young Sook; Kang, Eun Sil; Lee, Myung Hwa; Park, Geum Ja

Abstract

This study was undertaken to develop an instrument to be used for measuring the concept of quality of life of Korean patients with cancer multidimensionary and correctly. It can contribute in holistic nursing care for Korean cancer patients and also provide and validate basic data to help oncology nurses measure the outcome of nursing intervention correctly. To develop this instrument, the researchers first estabilished a conceptual framework based on the results of qualitative data analysis and indepth interview method Development of the scale was conducted using a method in which 31 items were assessed by subjects' self report using linear analogue scales. The subjects were 79 D.M. patients, 103 patients with acute illness, and 91 cancer patients residing in Busan, Korea. Data were collected during the period from July, 24 to August 14, 2000. This instrument consisted of 31 items with a self report scale. This instrument covered 4 dimensions of cancer patients : 1) physical wellbeing 2) psychological wellbeing 3) social wellbeing and 4)spiritual wellbeing. Each item had a possible score of 10. The reliability of the scale was tested with Cronbach's alpha. Validity was evaluated by examining the relationships of this scale, Youn's Quality of Life Questionnare scores and the Simple Quality of Life scale. Two separate runs of multiple regression were used to predict scores on the Simple Quality of Life measurement. Further validation was obtained by examining the correlation between the instrument subscores and Youn's Quality of Life measurement subscore for convergence of this scale. Examination of the discriminant. power of the instrument was done using ANOVA test. The results are summarized as follows: 1. The reliability of the instrument for the quality of life was 0.8321(Cronbach's alpha.), physical wellbeing dimension 0.6343, psychological wellbeing dimension 0.6501, spiritual wellbeing dimension 0.5883. 2. This instrument had a high correlation with Youn's Quality of Life measurement(r= 0.636) in cancer patients, whereas it had a low correlation with Simple Quality of Life measurement(r=0.455) in cancer patients. In the D.M. patients, the instrument correlated with both the Youn's Quality of Life measurement and Simple Quality of life measurement(r=0.313, r= 0.407) and in the acute stage patients, the instrument had no correlation. 3.Multiple regression of individual items on the Simple Quality of Life scores accounted for 56.8% of the variance in the Simple Quality of Life measurement, whereas, Youn's Quality of Life measurement scores accounts for 31.7%. 4. The correlations collected from the three group had the same patterns of variations but especially the instrument developed in this study had higher disciminant power than that of Youn's Quality of Life Measurement.