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Handbook of Quality of Life in Cancer pp 105–122Cite as

Validating Cancer Quality of Life Assessment Tools: Psychometric Considerations

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Abstract

Quality of life is an important endpoint in oncology clinical trials. In order to have a valid and reliable interpretation of the results observed, it is essential to use validated QoL questionnaire for the population of interest. Therefore, the psychometric properties of any newly developed QoL questionnaire should be assessed before it is used in any study. These properties are numerous and can be divided into three domains, namely, the validity, the reliability, and the responsiveness. The interpretability of a QoL questionnaire is another important characteristic to allow a qualitative appraisal of the QoL level and change over time. For most of these properties, statistical analyses are used with recommendations to consider the property as reached. As for any study, these analyses should be made with an appropriate sample size. Therefore, experts proposed recommendations on minimum sample size requirement.

Keywords

  • Psychometric properties
  • Validation
  • Reliability
  • Responsiveness
  • Interpretability
  • Sample size

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biostatistics Unit DRCI & Human and Social Sciences Department & French National Platform Quality of Life and Cancer, Centre Léon Bérard, Lyon, France

    Amélie Anota & Emilie Charton

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  1. Amélie Anota
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  2. Emilie Charton
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Correspondence to Amélie Anota .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Health Research, University College London, London, UK

    Angelos P. Kassianos

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Anota, A., Charton, E. (2022). Validating Cancer Quality of Life Assessment Tools: Psychometric Considerations. In: Kassianos, A.P. (eds) Handbook of Quality of Life in Cancer. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84702-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84702-9_7

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