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Validity and feasibility of the Arabic version of distress thermometer for Saudi cancer patients

BACKGROUND: The distress thermometer (DT) has been studied and validated as an effective screening instrument for identifying distress among cancer patients worldwide. This study aims to evaluate the validity of the Arabic version of the DT in Saudi cancer patients, to define the optimal cutoff poin...

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Autores principales: Alosaimi, Fahad D., Abdel-Aziz, Nashwa, Alsaleh, Khalid, AlSheikh, Rawan, AlSheikh, Rana, Abdel-Warith, Ahmed
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6241127/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30427918
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207364
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author Alosaimi, Fahad D.
Abdel-Aziz, Nashwa
Alsaleh, Khalid
AlSheikh, Rawan
AlSheikh, Rana
Abdel-Warith, Ahmed
author_facet Alosaimi, Fahad D.
Abdel-Aziz, Nashwa
Alsaleh, Khalid
AlSheikh, Rawan
AlSheikh, Rana
Abdel-Warith, Ahmed
author_sort Alosaimi, Fahad D.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The distress thermometer (DT) has been studied and validated as an effective screening instrument for identifying distress among cancer patients worldwide. This study aims to evaluate the validity of the Arabic version of the DT in Saudi cancer patients, to define the optimal cutoff point of the Arabic DT for detecting clinically significant distress and to determine whether there is any correlation between clinically significant distress and other demographic and Problem List variables. METHODS: The original form of the DT was translated to Arabic using a forward and backward translation method. Then, a group of 247 cancer patients who were followed up at the Outpatient Oncology Clinic at King Saud Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, completed a socio-demographic and clinical status questionnaire, the DT and the Problem List scale, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). RESULTS: Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses picked out an area under the curve of 0.76 when compared with a HADS cutoff score of 15. The DT had the best sensitivity (0.70) and specificity (0.63) with cutoff score of 4. A DT score of 4 or more was found to have a statistically significant correlation with female gender, advanced cancer stages and most of the Problem List items, including child care, work or school, treatment decision, dealing with children and partners, depression, fears, nervousness, sadness, loss of interest in usual activity, religious concerns, appearance, bathing/dressing, breathing, diarrhea, fatigue, feeling swollen, fever, getting around, indigestion, memory and concentration, nausea, dry nose, pain, and sexual problems. In contrast, a multivariate regression analysis confirmed only advanced cancer stages, treatment decision, depression, fear, sadness, worry, breathing, feeling swollen, fever, indigestion, memory and concentration, dry nose and congestion, pain and sleep as independent factors associated with distress in cancer patients. CONCLUSIONS: We found the Arabic version of the DT to be a valid instrument for screening distress in Saudi patients with cancer. Our study proposes using a cutoff score of 4 as an indicator of clinically significant distress in this population.
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spelling pubmed-62411272018-12-01 Validity and feasibility of the Arabic version of distress thermometer for Saudi cancer patients Alosaimi, Fahad D. Abdel-Aziz, Nashwa Alsaleh, Khalid AlSheikh, Rawan AlSheikh, Rana Abdel-Warith, Ahmed PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: The distress thermometer (DT) has been studied and validated as an effective screening instrument for identifying distress among cancer patients worldwide. This study aims to evaluate the validity of the Arabic version of the DT in Saudi cancer patients, to define the optimal cutoff point of the Arabic DT for detecting clinically significant distress and to determine whether there is any correlation between clinically significant distress and other demographic and Problem List variables. METHODS: The original form of the DT was translated to Arabic using a forward and backward translation method. Then, a group of 247 cancer patients who were followed up at the Outpatient Oncology Clinic at King Saud Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, completed a socio-demographic and clinical status questionnaire, the DT and the Problem List scale, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). RESULTS: Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses picked out an area under the curve of 0.76 when compared with a HADS cutoff score of 15. The DT had the best sensitivity (0.70) and specificity (0.63) with cutoff score of 4. A DT score of 4 or more was found to have a statistically significant correlation with female gender, advanced cancer stages and most of the Problem List items, including child care, work or school, treatment decision, dealing with children and partners, depression, fears, nervousness, sadness, loss of interest in usual activity, religious concerns, appearance, bathing/dressing, breathing, diarrhea, fatigue, feeling swollen, fever, getting around, indigestion, memory and concentration, nausea, dry nose, pain, and sexual problems. In contrast, a multivariate regression analysis confirmed only advanced cancer stages, treatment decision, depression, fear, sadness, worry, breathing, feeling swollen, fever, indigestion, memory and concentration, dry nose and congestion, pain and sleep as independent factors associated with distress in cancer patients. CONCLUSIONS: We found the Arabic version of the DT to be a valid instrument for screening distress in Saudi patients with cancer. Our study proposes using a cutoff score of 4 as an indicator of clinically significant distress in this population. Public Library of Science 2018-11-14 /pmc/articles/PMC6241127/ /pubmed/30427918 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207364 Text en © 2018 Alosaimi et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Alosaimi, Fahad D.
Abdel-Aziz, Nashwa
Alsaleh, Khalid
AlSheikh, Rawan
AlSheikh, Rana
Abdel-Warith, Ahmed
Validity and feasibility of the Arabic version of distress thermometer for Saudi cancer patients
title Validity and feasibility of the Arabic version of distress thermometer for Saudi cancer patients
title_full Validity and feasibility of the Arabic version of distress thermometer for Saudi cancer patients
title_fullStr Validity and feasibility of the Arabic version of distress thermometer for Saudi cancer patients
title_full_unstemmed Validity and feasibility of the Arabic version of distress thermometer for Saudi cancer patients
title_short Validity and feasibility of the Arabic version of distress thermometer for Saudi cancer patients
title_sort validity and feasibility of the arabic version of distress thermometer for saudi cancer patients
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6241127/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30427918
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207364
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