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Item selection in the development of quality of life scale for nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
At present, the quality of life (QOL) of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients is assessed with the QOL scales for cancer patients or head and neck cancer patients (QLQ-C30, QLQ-H&N35, and so on), and SF-36 scale, but they are not specific scales for NPC patients. The specific scale for NPC patients (Scale of Quality of Life for Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, SQOL-NPC) has not been updated. This study was to develop a QOL scale (Quality of Life for Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, QOL-NPC) for NPC patients in China.


METHODS
The pilot scale was formed according to the definition of QOL from WHO and based on interviews with some experts and patients. The data were collected from 433 NPC patients treated in Cancer Center of Sun Yat-sen University from January to February, 2007. The items were preliminarily screened, evaluated, and modified, then selected by the methods of coefficient of variation, correlation analysis, factor analysis, and reliability analysis (the internal consistency Cronbach's coefficients).


RESULTS
QOL-NPC was developed and evaluated. The scale included 30 items in four domains: physical function (PH), psychological function (PS), social function (SF), and side effect (SE).


CONCLUSION
The QOL-NPC scale might be an effective scale for NPC patients because it is consistent with the WHO definition and connotation of QOL, and contains common issues of NPC patients as well.