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The Functional Living Index-Cancer is a reliable and valid instrument in Chinese cancer patients

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Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate the linguistic and psychometric properties of the Functional Living Index-Cancer (FLIC) in assessing the quality of life of Chinese cancer patients.

Methods

The English FLIC was translated into Traditional Chinese by the standard forward–backward procedure. After cognitive debriefing, a Traditional Chinese FLIC was administered to 500 cancer patients in a major public hospital in Hong Kong. Of which, 200 were invited to complete the questionnaire in 2 weeks. To identify a scale structure appropriate to Chinese, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed on two randomly split halves of the sample.

Results

We identified five scales of the Traditional Chinese FLIC which assess the physical, psychological, hardship, nausea and social aspects. These five scales and the overall scale demonstrated satisfactory fit and had the alpha coefficient ranged from 0.68 to 0.92. The intra-class correlation coefficient ranged from 0.67 to 0.88. In addition, all FLIC scales were negatively associated with the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status and, also except for the psychological scale, had lower scores in patients who were treated by chemotherapy.

Conclusions

The Traditional Chinese FLIC is an appropriate health indicator for Chinese cancer patients.

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Fig. 1

Abbreviations

CFA:

Confirmatory factor analysis

ECOG:

Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group

EFA:

Exploratory factor analysis

EORTC QLQ:

European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire

FACT-G:

Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General

FLIC:

Functional Living Index-Cancer

ICC:

Intraclass correlation coefficient

RMSEA:

Root mean square error of approximation

SD:

Standard deviation

SRMR:

Standardized root mean square residual

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Small Project Funding of The University of Hong Kong. Y.B.C. was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Health’s National Medical Research Council under its Clinician Scientist Award.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, School of Nursing, The University of Hong Kong, 4/F, William MW Mong Block, Faculty of Medicine Building, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

    Daniel Y. T. Fong & Janet Y. H. Wong

  2. Community Outreach Service Team, North District Hospital, Sheung Shui, Hong Kong

    Alvina H. K. Lee

  3. Department of Clinical Oncology, Tuen Mun Hospital, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong

    Stewart Y. Tung

  4. C&J’s Medicare for Women Limited, Central, Hong Kong

    Y. M. Chan

  5. Department of Palliative Medicine, National Cancer Centre Singapore, 11 Hospital Drive, Singapore, 169610, Singapore

    Cynthia R. Goh

  6. Department of Biostatistics, Singapore Clinical Research Institute, 31 Biopolis Way, Nanos #02-01, Singapore, 138669, Singapore

    Y. B. Cheung

  7. Center for Quantitative Medicine, Office of Clinical Sciences, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, 8 College Road, Singapore, 6601 2682, Singapore

    Y. B. Cheung

  8. Department of International Health, University of Tampere, ARVO Building, 33014, Tampere, Finland

    Y. B. Cheung

Authors
  1. Daniel Y. T. Fong
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  2. Alvina H. K. Lee
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  3. Stewart Y. Tung
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  4. Janet Y. H. Wong
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  5. Y. M. Chan
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  6. Cynthia R. Goh
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  7. Y. B. Cheung
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel Y. T. Fong.

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Fong, D.Y.T., Lee, A.H.K., Tung, S.Y. et al. The Functional Living Index-Cancer is a reliable and valid instrument in Chinese cancer patients. Qual Life Res 23, 311–316 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-013-0456-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-013-0456-z

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