Developing a checksheet for breast cancer patients receiving endocrine therapy-examining reliability and validity

The aim was to develop a checksheet that comprehends the daily lives of breast cancer patients receiving endocrine therapy, and examine its reliability and validity.

An anonymous, cross-sectional questionnaire was given to breast cancer patients under the age of 50 who had been receiving endocrine therapy for less than 1 year at outpatient clinical oncology offices in three facilities. Reliability was examined using Cronbach's alpha and test-retest reliability. Content validity, face validity, concurrent validity, convergent validity/discriminant validity, and factor analysis were used to examine validity. The study was carried out with approval from the research ethics committee.

The checksheet was composed of three sections: subjective symptoms, discomforts in daily life while undergoing treatment, and coping with stress. Content validity was assessed as being mostly appropriate, and items identified as needing revision were corrected. Factor analysis led to four factors and 22 items for subjective symptoms, five factors and 18 items for daily life while undergoing treatment, and six factors and 24 items for coping with stress. Results indicated a high degree of correlation for concurrent validity, a moderate degree of correlation for convergent validity, and a low degree of correlation for discriminant validity.

This study verified that the checksheet in its initial development as a scale has high reliability and validity.