The need for supportive care among head and neck cancer patients: psychometric assessment of the Dutch version of the Supportive Care Needs Survey Short-Form (SCNS-SF34) and the newly developed head and neck cancer module (SCNS-HNC)

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to assess the psychometric properties of the Dutch version of the 34-item Short-Form Supportive Care Needs Survey (SCNS-SF34) and the newly developed module for head and neck cancer (HNC) patients (SCNS-HNC). METHODS: HNC patients were included from two cross-sectional studies. Content validity of the SCNS-HNC was analysed by examining redundancy and completeness of items. Factor structure was assessed using confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses. Cronbach’s alpha, Spearman’s correlation, Mann–Whitney U test, Kruskall–Wallis and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were used to assess internal consistency, construct validity and test–retest reliability. RESULTS: Content validity of the SCNS-HNC was good, although some HNC topics were missing. For the SCNS-SF34, a four-factor structure was found, namely physical and daily living, psychological, sexuality and health system and information and patient support (alpha = .79 to .95). For the SCNS-HNC, a two-factor structure was found, namely HNC-specific functioning and lifestyle (alpha = .89 and .60). Respectively, 96 and 89 % of the hypothesised correlations between the SCNS-SF34 or SCNS-HNC and other patient-reported outcome measures were found; 57 and 67 % also showed the hypothesised magnitude of correlation. The SCNS-SF34 domains discriminated between treatment procedure (physical and daily living p = .02 and psychological p = .01) and time since treatment (health system, information and patient support p = .02). Test–retest reliability of SCNS-SF34 domains and HNC-specific functioning domain was above .70 (ICC = .74 to .83), and ICC = .67 for the lifestyle domain. Floor effects ranged from 21.1 to 70.9 %. CONCLUSIONS: The SCNS-SF34 and SCNS-HNC are valid and reliable instruments to evaluate the need for supportive care among (Dutch) HNC patients. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00520-016-3307-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.