Key references:
Schofield, P., et al. (2012). Cancer Treatment Survey (CaTS): Development and validation of a new instrument to measure patients’ preparation for chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Psycho-Oncology. 21(3):307-315.
Primary use / Purpose:
Background:
People receiving cancer treatment commonly experience pre-treatment anxiety and report numerous distressing physical and psychosocial sequelae to treatment. Many feel anxious and fearful about the prospect of chemotherapy. High levels of clinically significant anxiety (47%) have been observed in women with early breast cancer about to commence adjuvant chemotherapy. Common physical sequelae to chemotherapy include nausea, fatigue, hair loss and predisposition to infection, while non-physical sequelae include treatment related anxiety, needle phobias and concerns about treatment length. Likewise, radiotherapy treatments can cause anxiety, with over 50% ofpeople receiving radiotherapy for cancer reportinganxiety before starting treatment and about 40% remain anxious at the end of treatment. The Cancer Treatment Survey (CaTS) addresses this issue and enables practitioners to improve the situation of the patient.
Psychometrics:
A systematic process of item selection removed 11 items. Factor analysis indicated a two-factor solution, with 11 items representing sensory/psychological concerns and 14 items representing procedural concerns. The two subscales demonstrated excellent internal reliability with Cronbach’s alpha both over 0.90 and the average inter-item correlation for each scale exceeded 0.30. Divergent validity was established for both CaTS subscales with the HADS-A and -T (all ro0.30). Younger participants (under 65 years of age) had significantly greater procedural concerns (p50.001; medium effect).
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Other Information:
To calculate subscale scores, simply sum each participant’s responses to items comprising that scale then divide by the total number of items (if there are missing responses, use the mean of non-missing items, if over half the items are completed Fayers et al 1998 Stat Med).
