Annals of Oncology Advance Access originally published online on July 24, 2008
Annals of Oncology 2008 19(12):2053-2060; doi:10.1093/annonc/mdn417
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
quality of life |
Validation of the simplified Chinese version of EORTC QLQ-C30 from the measurements of five types of inpatients with cancer
1 School of Public Health, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan, China
2 Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York, USA
3 Yunnan Tumor Hospital, Kunming, Yunnan, China
* Correspondence to: Prof. C. Wan, Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14642, USA. Tel: +01-585-275-5294; Fax: +01-585-273-1031; E-mail: wanchh{at}hotmail.com
Background: European Organization for Research and Treatment quality of life (QOL) questionnaire (QLQ-C30) has been used frequently and many language versions have been developed, including the simplified Chinese version. It is important to study psychometric properties of the simplified Chinese version from the clinical standpoint.
Patients and methods: The simplified Chinese version of the QLQ-C30 was used in a longitudinal study of 600 patients with five types of cancer: lung, breast, head and neck, colorectal, and stomach. The psychometric properties of the scale were evaluated by indicators of validity and reliability coefficients such as Cronbach's
and Pearson's correlation coefficient r, standardized response mean (SRM), correlational analysis, t-tests, and structural equation models.
Results: Correlation and structural equation model analyses confirmed good construct validity with root mean square error of approximation 0.054, standardized root mean square residual 0.037, non-normed fit index 0.972, and comparative fit index 0.980. The
coefficients for all domains are >0.7 except for cognitive functioning (0.49). The test–retest reliability coefficients for most domains are >0.80 except for appetite loss (0.77) and diarrhea (0.75). The QOL score changes after treatments were of statistical significance with higher or moderate SRM in most domains.
Conclusion: The simplified Chinese version of QLQ-C30 has good validity, reliability, and responsiveness and can be used to measure QOL for Chinese cancer patients.
Key words: quality of life, QLICP-GM, structural equation model, standardized response mean, psychometric properties
Received for publication June 20, 2007. Revision received November 8, 2007. Revision received April 26, 2008. Accepted for publication June 10, 2008.