Fear of Cancer Recurrence 7 Scale Tamil Translation and Validation among Breast Cancer Survivors in India

Abstract

Objectives: Fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) is one of the most widely reported conditions among cancer survivors. The present study aims to translate and validate FCR7 scale into regional language tamil among breast cancer survivors (BCSv). Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study comprising a sample of 106 breast cancer survivors was carried out. FCR 7 scale, functional assessment of cancer therapy-B (FACT-B) and impact of event scale-R (IES-R) were used for establishing reliability and validity. Translation of the FCR7-T scale was done from English into Tamil following the international guidelines and a field study was performed. Results: The test-retest reliability was established for FCR 7 Tamil with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.96 and ICC value of 0.910. On Spearman’s correlation, an inverse relationship was found between FCR7 and FACT-B (r = −0.259 and P = 0.01). The survivors with high FCR reported poorer quality of life. Conclusion: The Tamil version of the FCR7 tool is highly sensitive for measuring FCR.