The Supportive Care sCore (SCC): trigger alert validation study in solid tumours

Patients' needs are still underestimated during the course of cancer. The development of a simple and accessible screening tool to screen supportive care needs is an innovative approach to improve the cancer care pathway. The Supportive Care sCore (SCC) is a new tool developed to trigger alerts on the main supportive care needs, such as social, nutritional, physical, pain or psychological disorders. We aimed to develop and validate the SCC tool in identifying supportive care needs.

The SCC, the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) and the EuroQol-5 Dimension (EQ-5D) questionnaire (for quality of life) were distributed to patients with cancer over a week in an ambulatory hospital of an oncology department. Acceptability was measured by assessing the fill rate. Validity of alerts generated by the SCC was assessed by their consistency with the ESAS and EQ-5D scores.

One hundred patients were included, with an average age of 67.2 years. Acceptability was good with a fill rate of over 90%. For a priori-defined risk groups by SCC with alert or not, the ESAS symptom score and quality of life differed significantly (p<0.05) between groups. We observed higher ESAS symptom scores in the alert group (nutritional alert-appetite: 4 (SD 2.4) vs 0 (SD 2.6), p<0.001; physical alert-fatigue: 4 (SD 1.7) vs 2 (SD 2.2), p<0.001; psychological alert-depressed: 3.5 (SD 2.7) vs 0 (SD 1.5), p<0.001). Quality of life was poorer in each domain of the EQ-5D in the alert group.

Our study demonstrates the construct validity of SCC, which holds promise in identifying supportive care needs.