Abstract
Objects
With improved treatment, many childhood brain tumor survivors live through adulthood. A psychometrically sound instrument, which can capture their unique experiences through the lifetime, is needed. This paper documents the development of the Pediatric Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy–Childhood Brain Tumor Survivor (PedsFACT-BrS) for use with survivors for at least 1 year posttreatment.
Methods
The PedsFACT-BrS was developed in two phases. In phase I, items were generated via interviewing 20 survivors, 20 caregivers, and 12 clinicians/teachers. In phase II, Rasch analysis and classical test theory were used to evaluate the responses of 46 survivors and 46 caregivers.
Conclusion
The 34-item PedsFACT-BrS covers four domains: physical well-being, emotional well-being and illness experiences, social well-being, and brain tumor-specific concerns. Its scalability is supported by Rasch analysis and its content validity and reliability is documented. It is now ready to be validated to other subpopulations across the disease trajectory.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Coleman Foundation via Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.
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Lai, JS., Cella, D., Tomita, T. et al. Developing a health-related quality of life instrument for childhood brain tumor survivors. Childs Nerv Syst 23, 47–57 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00381-006-0176-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00381-006-0176-6