Abstract
BACKGROUND: Disease-specific quality of life (QoL) questionnaires are increasingly used to provide patient-reported out-come measures in both malignant and non-malignant disease.
OBJECTIVE: To create, validate and test the psychometrics of the Skin Cancer Quality of Life (SCQoL), which was designed to measure health-related QoL in patients with non-melanoma skin cancer affecting any area and undergoing any therapy.
METHODS AND MATERIALS: The SCQoL was developed in a stepwise approach. Three pilot studies (testing content and face validity) and psychometric testing (scale structure, reliability, domains and known-groups validity, concurrent and convergent validity) were conducted. Rasch analyses were performed on the final questionnaire.
RESULTS: The initial 10-item questionnaire was reduced to 9 items following interviews and inter-item correlations. The nine item scale was confirmed by Item Response Theory (IRT) and internal consistency. Differential Item Functioning (DIF) was found for a single item, but the effect was small.
CONCLUSION: The final 9-item SCQoL is unidimensional and consists of 3 domains covering function, emotions and control. Furthermore there is one single global item. The total score range from 0 to 27. Higher score denote a greater impairment of the QoL.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Dermatologic Surgery |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1784-93 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| ISSN | 1076-0512 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2013 |
Keywords
- Adult
- Aged
- Aged, 80 and over
- Female
- Humans
- Male
- Middle Aged
- Pilot Projects
- Psychometrics
- Quality of Life
- Questionnaires
- Skin Neoplasms
