Validation of a modified Rotterdam Symptom Checklist for use with cancer patients in the United States

The Rotterdam Symptom Checklist (RSCL) is a well-known instrument for the assessment of symptom-related distress among cancer patients. Despite its broad application, the utility of the RSCL with patients of some cancers is hindered by the omission of several important physical symptoms and methodological limitations of previous validation studies. The aims of the present study were to modify the RSCL through the addition of several physical symptoms and to subsequently validate the modified version of the Rotterdam Symptom Checklist (RSCL-M) with a heterogeneous sample of cancer patients from the United States. A total of 1,005 male and female cancer patients from two midwestern states completed the RSCL-M and several other self-report instruments. Results indicated that the RSCL-M is a reliable and valid instrument for use with cancer patients in the United States and is sensitive to differences in physical distress across groups expected to have distinct symptom-related distress profiles.