The development and validation of the psychological capital questionnaire for patients with Cancer the psychological capital questionnaire

BACKGROUND: Studies increasingly show that positive psychological constructs affect the mental health of cancer patients. However, most scales that measure hope, resilience, optimism and self-efficacy have been developed based on general populations. The aim of our study was to develop a psychological capital (PsyCap) questionnaire for patients with cancer (PCQ-C) to gauge their mental state more accurately. METHODS: The items for the scale were selected by comprehensive literature review and semi-structured interviews, and the relevant terms were screened by an expert panel. A pilot study was then conducted on 202 patients to reduce the item pool, and the reliability and validity of the scale were evaluated using 500 completed questionnaires. The test-retest reliability was then assessed using a subsample of 100 patients. Finally, the completed questionnaires of 229 patients with breast cancer were used to assess the criterion validity of the PCQ-C, including measures of depression and anxiety. RESULTS: Item reduction and exploratory factory analysis resulted in 24 items for self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism, accounting for 56.72% of the variance. The Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was 0.886, and the test-retest reliability was 0.825. PsyCap showed a significant negative correlation with both depression (r = − 0.631, P < 0.01) and anxiety (r = − 0.601, P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The PCQ-C can objectively evaluate PsyCap in cancer patients and exhibits good psychometric properties.