Development of a distress inventory for cancer: preliminary results

Advances in cancer treatment have led to cure and prolongation of patients' lives; however associated psychosocial problems, including distress, can detrimentally affect patients' compliance with treatment and ultimately, their outcome. Symptom distress has been well addressed in many studies; however, psychological distress has only been quantified by using depression or anxiety scales/checklists or quality of life scales containing a distress sub scale/component or by the use of scales that are not psychological distress-specific.

The present study is an attempt to construct a psychological distress inventory for specific use with cancer patients.

The standardisation sample consisted of 63 randomly selected patients with head and neck cancer who had undergone/ were undergoing curative treatment at the Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum.

The Distress Inventory for Cancer contained 57 positively and negatively toned items. An item analysis was conducted, followed by a factor analysis, thereby identifying the domains influencing distress.

The final questionnaire contained 26 items subdivided into four domains viz. the personal, spiritual, physical, and the family domains, with each domain providing a sub score. The reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) of the scale was found to be 0.85.

These are the preliminary results of an ongoing study on global distress and tool development process. Reported here is the first step towards development of such tool.