Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 May 16:14:1158449.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1158449. eCollection 2023.

Evaluation of a short instrument for measuring health-related quality of life in oncological patients in routine care (HELP-6): an observational study

Theresa Schrage  1 , Mirja Görlach  1 , Christian Stephan Betz  2 , Carsten Bokemeyer  3 , Nicolaus Kröger  4 , Volkmar Mueller  5 , Andreas Krüll  6 , Holger Schulz  1 , Christiane Bleich  1
Affiliations

Evaluation of a short instrument for measuring health-related quality of life in oncological patients in routine care (HELP-6): an observational study

Theresa Schrage et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Purpose: Patient-reported outcomes have not been sufficiently implemented into the routine care of cancer patients because the existing instruments are often too long and complex or not cancer-specific. The aim of this study is the determination of psychometric properties and item reduction of a newly developed health-related quality of life (HrQoL) questionnaire for use in oncological clinical routines.

Methods: This observational study with a repeated measurements design included oncological inpatients and outpatients. A total of 630 patients participated at the first point of measurement and 404 at the second point of measurement. To evaluate the instrument, we conducted hierarchical confirmative factor analyses and for further validation correlated the resulting factors with standardized and validated HrQoL measurements. Test-retest reliability and responsiveness to change were tested.

Results: The developed questionnaire "HELP-6" ("Hamburg Inventory for Measuring Quality of Life in Oncological Patients") has a six-factor structure and has moderate-to-good convergent validity (r= -0.25 --0.68). Test-retest reliability was moderate-to-good (r =0.56-0.81, p < 0.001). Indications for responsiveness to change were found for three dimensions. The final version of the questionnaire HELP-6 has six dimensions with one item each.

Conclusion: With the HELP-6 instrument for measuring HrQoL in cancer patients, we provide a short and practical patient-reported outcome instrument. Though responsiveness to change could not be confirmed for all dimensions in this study, the HELP-6 includes time-efficient completion and evaluation and is informative in relevant HrQoL dimensions of cancer patients. Therefore, the HELP-6 poses an important addition to inpatient and outpatient routine cancer care.

Trial registration: This study was registered at Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/y7xce/), on 9 June 2018.

Keywords: confirmatory factor analysis (CFA); health-related quality of life (HrQoL); oncological routine care; psycho-oncology; psychometrics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Hierarchical model of the HELP questionnaire, model 1.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Modified hierarchical model of the HELP questionnaire, model 2.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Aaronson N. K., Ahmedzai S., Bergman B., Bullinger M., Cull A., Duez N. J., et al. . (1993). The European organization for research and treatment of cancer QLQ-C30: A quality-of-life instrument for use in international clinical trials in oncology. J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 85, 365–376. 10.1093/jnci/85.5.365 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Alex L. (2021). lavaanPlot. Available online at: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/lavaanPlot/lavaanPlot.pdf (accessed May 2, 2023).
    1. Anatchkova M., Donelson S. M., Skalicky A. M., Mchorney C. A., Jagun D., Whiteley J. (2018). Exploring the implementation of patient-reported outcome measures in cancer care: Need for more real-world evidence results in the peer reviewed literature. J. Pat. Report. Outcomes 2, 64. 10.1186/s41687-018-0091-0 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Atallah S., Barbera L., Folwell M., Howell D., Liu Z., Croke J. (2021). Feasibility of implementing a cervix cancer-specific patient-reported outcome measure in routine ambulatory clinics. Support Care Cancer 29, 499–507. 10.1007/s00520-020-05500-2 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bascioni R., Giorgi F., Esperide B., Iacopini D., Brugni M., Giustini L., et al. . (2005). Quality of life (QOL) assessment with EORTC QLQ-C30 in daily clinical practice. J. Clin Oncol. 23, 8205–8205. 10.1200/jco.2005.23.16_suppl.8205 - DOI

LinkOut - more resources