Psychometric properties of a prostate cancer radiation late toxicity questionnaire

Abstract

Background: To construct a short prostate cancer radiation late toxicity (PCRT) questionnaire with health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) domains. Methods: The PCRT was developed by item generation, questionnaire construction (n = 7 experts, n = 8 focus group patients), pilot testing (n = 37), item reduction (n = 100), reliability testing (n = 237), and validity testing (n = 274). Results: Reliability of the three item-reduced subscales demonstrated intraclass correlation coefficients (CC) of 0.811 (GU), 0.842 (GI), and 0.740 (sexual). Discriminant validity demonstrated Pearson CC of 0.449 (GU-GI), 0.200 (sexual-GU), and 0.09 (sexual-GI). Content validity correlations between PCRT-PCQoL were 0.35-0.78, PCRT-FACT-G© were 0.19-0.39, and PCRT-SF-36® were 0.03-0.34. Conclusion: We successfully generated a PCRT HRQoL questionnaire including subscales with very good psychometric properties. © 2007 Rodrigues et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.