Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Scale to Assess Cancer Health Education Outcomes in Patients

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Health Education
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Effective cancer health education is crucial for improving patient understanding, emotional regulation, and treatment adherence.
• Validated instruments specifically assessing the proximal outcomes of cancer health education are limited.
• Existing measures often fail to distinguish educational effects from general mental health states.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a multidimensional scale to assess the proximal effects of cancer health education.
• To ensure the scale clearly differentiates educational outcomes from generic mental health indicators.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study involved 236 adult cancer patients at a Chinese university hospital.
• Item generation was guided by the Health Belief Model, patient interviews, and expert reviews.
• Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and Cronbach's alpha were used to evaluate construct validity and internal consistency of the 13-item scale.

Main Results:

• EFA identified a three-factor structure: Health Knowledge Comprehension, Emotional-Attitudinal Support, and Health Behavior Implementation, explaining 60.07% of the variance.
• The scale demonstrated excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.902), with subscale alphas exceeding 0.80.
• Strong item-factor loadings (0.72-0.89) indicated robust relationships between scale items and underlying constructs.

Conclusions:

• The Cancer Health Education Scale is a psychometrically supported, multidimensional instrument for evaluating cancer patient education outcomes.
• Further validation in diverse populations is recommended to enhance its generalizability.
• The scale can inform the development of tailored patient education programs and support future cross-cultural research.