Reliability and Validity of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast Quality-of-Life Instrument (original) (raw)
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Quality-of-Life Measurement in Women with Breast Cancer
The Breast Journal, 1997
The health-related quality of life (QOL) of breast cancer patients has been t h e focus of study for many years. However, it is only recently that the quality-of-life construct has been precisely defined and measured with validated, reliable instruments. The measurement of healthrelated quality of life and the application of this data in clinical practice has been facilitated by the publication of several QOL instruments widely used in clinical trials. Knowledge of available instruments and a growing database on quality of life following treatment for breast cancer allows clinicians and patients to better collaborate to improve patient functioning following treatment. The task for practitioners is to translate current QOL data into useful information for patients.
In Vivo, 2021
Background/Aim: Quality of life (QoL) in early breast cancer (BC) treatment may be affected by acute and late toxicities. This study evaluated the impact of radiotherapy (RT) schedules, treatment-related toxicities, hormone therapy (HT) and age on QoL. Patients and Methods: Ninety-five patients answered the FACT-B 4.0 questionnaire. Acute or late toxicities were recorded at each follow-up visit. Results: The median trend of the QoL subscales was stable during all questionnaires. HT negatively impacted on Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General-Total, functional and emotional wellbeing. No difference was recorded between RT schedules and toxicity. No significant differences for age were detected in QoL. Conclusion: RT seems not to influence QoL of BC patients, in terms of fractionation regimen or RT-related side-effects. Moreover, women having systemic HT experienced a QoL worse than patients treated with RT only. Further and longterm protocols are needed to improve the validity of the tool. Advances in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer (BC) have led to an increase in cancer survival, resulting in quality of life (QoL) improvement. Breast conserving surgery followed by adjuvant radiation therapy (RT) is the current standard treatment for early BC. Local and systemic treatments could cause skin dyschromia, lymphedema, fatigue, hot flashes, sexual dysfunction, and arthralgia with consequent changes in physical appearance and routine activities. These toxicities may persist for a long time after treatment with a subsequent decline in QoL (1). Studies have shown that in clinical trials QoL represents an important endpoint, whose assessment could contribute to improved treatment and patient's satisfaction (2-5). Under this scenario, the main aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of RT and hormone therapy (HT) on the QoL during the first 2 years after RT. Fractionation schedules (conventional vs. hypofractionation), radiation toxicities and age were also investigated. QoL was evaluated with Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy General Questionnaire and its Breast Cancer Supplement (FACT-B) questionnaire (https://www.facit.org), version 4.0 in Italian language. This tool is deemed as a quick and well validated multi-dimensional self-report questionnaire with subscales measuring physical, social, emotional, and functional wellbeing and contains additional concerns in breast cancer (6). Patients and Methods The study was designed as a prospective observational research project and was approved by the Ethics Committee of the "SS Annunziata" Hospital, "G. D'Annunzio" University, Chieti, Italy on 9 th May 2018. All patients were treated in our Radiotherapy Department and provided written informed consent. Medical records of enrolled patients were marked by a pink circle to streamline the identification process during treatment and follow-up. Inclusion criteria were: female patients, age ≥18 years, histologically proven breast cancer, ductal carcinoma in situ and invasive carcinoma stage I-II, breast conservative surgery and adjuvant radiotherapy.
Background: This study aims to compare the development, characteristics and validity of two widely used tools in the breast cancer population, the EORTC QLQ-BR23 and the FACT-B. Methods: A literature search was conducted using Ovid MEDLINE, OLDMEDLINE, Embase, Embase Classic and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials to identify relevant studies. Results: Both tools were found to be reliable and valid. The QLQ-BR23 focuses on physical function, whereas the FACT-B emphasizes emotional well-being. Scoring, item format, organization and response options differ between questionnaires. Conclusion: Overall, both questionnaires are effective in assessing breast cancer-specific quality of life. Clear similarities and differences between the two tools exist. Decision-making between the questionnaires should be based on the purpose and design of the study.
Quality of life in breast cancer patients: measurement issues in cancer clinical trials
Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research, 2002
Quality of life is becoming a significant issue to measure in breast cancer patients. Increasingly, in breast cancer clinical trials we see quality of life as a secondary end-point and we are understanding more about the needs of these women. However, as yet, there is no gold standard regarding which tool is the most appropriate to use. This article reviews quality of life measures that have been used in cancer clinical trials with breast cancer patients and evaluates their reliability, validity and cultural relevance. We propose suggestions for selecting future measures for use in a breast cancer population of patients.
Revista Brasileira de Epidemiologia, 2013
Objective: To validate and assess reliability and understanding of the EORTC–C30 quality of life questionnaire and its breast cancer specific module, the EORTC-BR23. Methods: This study was conducted at the AC Camargo Cancer Hospital, São Paulo, Brazil. A total of 100 women diagnosed with breast cancer were interviewed. Internal consistency, confirmatory factorial analysis, convergent validity, construct validity and degree of understanding were examined. Reliability was assessed by comparison of means at times 1 and 2, inter-class coefficient and Bland-Altman graphics. Results: Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.72 to 0.86 for the EORTC-C30 and from 0.78 to 0.83 for the EORTC-BR23 questionnaire. Most questions were confirmed in the confirmatory factorial analysis. In the construct validity analysis, the questionnaires were capable of differentiating patients with or without lymphedema, apart from the symptom scales of both questionnaires. Both questionnaires presented a significant cor...
The prognostic association of health-related quality of life scores with survival in breast cancer
Supportive Care in Cancer, 2007
Goals of work: There is extensive data showing that healthrelated quality of life (HRQOL) tools measuring the activities of daily life provide prognostic information in cancer. However, similar information on HRQOL tools measuring patient satisfaction with their life is sparse. The Ferrans and Powers quality of life index (QLI) is one such instrument. This study evaluated the association between HRQOL, as measured by the QLI, and survival in breast cancer. Materials and methods: We examined a consecutive case series of 251 histologically confirmed breast cancer patients treated at Cancer Treatment Centers of America® between April 2001 and November 2004. QLI measures overall HRQOL and the HRQOL in four major subscales: health and physical functioning, social and economic, psychological and spiritual, and family. All scores range from 0 to 30 with higher scores indicating a better HRQOL. Study patients were dichotomized into two groups based on the median scores for all QLI subscales. Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate survival. Log-rank test was used to study the equality of survival distributions.
Modern Care Journal
Background and Aim: The prevalence of breast cancer is increasing among Iranian women. Breast cancer and its treatments can affect ones quality of life. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of life and its contributing factors among patients with breast cancer. Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted in 2014-2015 on 108 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008-2014 and had received cancer treatments for at least 3 months before recruitment to the study. Initially, a list of all eligible women was created based on the data available from the cancer record center in South Khorasan, Iran. Then, eligible women were contacted over the telephone and were invited to the study. The 30-item EORTC core quality of life questionnaire and the 23-item EORTC Breast cancer quality of life questionnaire were completed for participants through face-to-face interviews. Collected data were entered into the SPSS software (v. 16.0), where the two-way analysis of variance was conducted for data analysis at a significance level of less than 0.05. Results: The total mean score of quality of life was 2.01 ± 0.47. Around 85.2% of participants had low quality of life, 13.9% had medium quality of life, and 0.9% had high quality of life. Quality of life had significant relationships with marital status and income (P < 0.05). The highest-scored dimensions of the functional and the symptom scales of the Core quality of life questionnaire were global health status (2.67 ± 0.78) and financial difficulties (2.8 ± 1.07), respectively. On the other hand, the highest-scored dimensions of the functional and the symptom scales of the breast cancer quality of life questionnaire were future perspective (2.62 ± 0.97) and systematic therapy side effects (2.11 ± 0.73), respectively. Conclusions: Only 0.9% of breast cancer patients have high quality of life and more than 85% of them have low quality of life. Women are at the heart of families and communities. Therefore, educational interventions and governmental support are needed for improving the quality of life among women with breast cancer.
Systematic overview of quality of life studies for breast cancer
Breast Cancer, 2002
Background: The concept of quality of life (QOL) is essentially subjective, determined from the patient's point of view. Thus, an appropriate investigation and analysis of QOL as an indicator of medical treatment outcome is a task of some difficulty. The physician-led QOL assessment studies to date in Japan have suffered from insufficient knowledge and understanding of the diverse factors contributing to QOL, thereby contributing to a dearth of quality studies. Given this background, the Japanese Breast Cancer Society has established a Task Force for the development of guidelines to properly conduct QOL assessment studies. The present article reports the results of a large-scale systematic overview of QOL assessment studies for breast cancer patients that was undertaken as one part of this project.
2008
Background: Measuring quality of life in breast cancer patients is of importance in assessing treatment outcomes. This study examined the impact of breast cancer diagnosis and its treatment on quality of life of women with breast cancer. Methods: This was a prospective study of quality of life in breast cancer patients. Quality of life was measured using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) and its breast cancer supplementary measure (QLQ-BR23) at three points in time: baseline (pre diagnosis), three months after initial treatment and one year after completion of treatment (in all 18 months follow-up). At baseline the questionnaires were administered to all suspected identified patients while both patients and the interviewer were blind to the final diagnosis. Socio-demographic and clinical data included: age, education, marital status, disease stage and initial treatment. Repeated measure analysis was performed to compare quality of life differences over the time. Results: In all, 167 patients diagnosed with breast cancer. The mean age of breast cancer patients was 47.2 (SD = 13.5) years and the vast majority (82.6%) underwent mastectomy. At eighteen months follow-up data for 99 patients were available for analysis. The results showed there were significant differences in patients' functioning and global quality of life at three points in time (P < 0.001). Although there were deteriorations in patients' scores for body image and sexual functioning, there were significant improvements for breast symptoms, systematic therapy side effects and patients' future perspective (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The findings suggest that overall breast cancer patients perceived benefit from their cancer treatment in long-term. However, patients reported problems with global quality of life, pain, arm symptoms and body image even after 18 months following their treatments. In addition, most of the functional scores did not improve.
PLOS ONE, 2019
This cross-sectional study is aimed at assessing the quality of life in a cohort of breast cancer patients at the Oncology Department, King Abdulaziz University Hospital (KAUH), King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (SA), and to differentiate QoL among different groups. Mean time since diagnosis was 3.97±1.90 years. European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaires-Core30 and BR23 (EORTC QLQ-C30 & BR23) were used to assess QoL in breast cancer survivors. ANOVA and independent t-test (parametric tests) were used for the categorical variables and Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests used for non-parametric tests. Linear regression analysis was done to measure predictors' significance and to calculate the coefficient of determination. Two hundred and eighty-four patients completed the survey. Global health status and functional scales, in most of the domains, were high, while symptom scales were moderate-to-low for most items, showing better QoL. Insomnia and fatigue were the most disturbing symptoms. Patients exhibited higher scores for body image and future perspective, while the least score is for sexual functioning. Global health, physical functioning, and role functioning were better in the age group �50 years (p<0.05). Premenopausal and perimenopausal patients showed a better level of functioning as compared to postmenopausal patients (p = 0.001). Premenopausal patients scored higher for sexual enjoyment, as compared to peri-and postmenopausal patients (p = 0.04). Systemic therapy side effects were more evident in the breast conservative surgery group. Predictors explained 8% of the variation in Physical functioning (R-squared = 0.08). A predictor that had a remarkable influence on physical functioning, as compared to the other predictors in the model, was menopausal status (P = 0.02). So, it was concluded that the breast cancer patients visiting our institute had a better quality of life regarding overall global health status as well as functional and symptom scales. Some issues, for instance, fatigue, insomnia, hair loss, and others, warrant good supportive therapy.