Development of a validated multi-platform patient-reported experience questionnaire for patients undergoing radiotherapy to the abdomen

With the progression of advanced techniques for abdominal radiotherapy and the implementation of active motion-management -which directly affects the patient, it is imperative that patient experience is investigated along with efficacy.

An abdominal radiotherapy questionnaire was developed for patients to report their experiences. The questionnaire was designed to be relevant across multiple platforms and at any stage of the radiotherapy pathway for direct comparison of techniques. The abdominal questionnaire was circulated to a public and patient involvement (PPI) group for initial feedback and then health care professionals with expertise in abdominal radiotherapy for validation. A Likert scale of 1-4 was used to produce a content validity index for the items (I-CVI) and the scale (S-CVI) and comment via free text feedback. Patient testing included both pre- and treatment abdominal sessions and was analysed using Cronbach's alpha (α).

Eight responses were received from the PPI group and ten professionals completed the CVI process. Four of the questions did not meet the I-CVI minimum requirement and were removed. The experts also suggested changes leading to the addition of eight questions in version 2 of the questionnaire. Repeat validation produced an I-CVI of ≥0.8 for all questions and an S-CVI of 0.96, exceeding the requirement to validate the individual questions and the whole tool as relevant. Questionnaire response rates were 100% and α within the satisfactory range (0.77 and 0.82).

We have created, validated and tested an abdominal radiotherapy specific patient experience questionnaire for use at any timepoint during the pathway.

The tool can be used by centres to collect and compare data to improve the overall experience of patients receiving radiotherapy to the abdomen.