[Development of the general module of the system of quality of life instruments for cancer patients: reliability and validity analysis].

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: The general module of the system of quality of life instruments for cancer patients (QLICP-GM) has been developed by us, but its psychologic properties need to be evaluated. This study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of QLICP-GM.

METHODS: The QOL data of 600 patients with lung cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, gastric cancer, and head and neck cancer were analyzed by paired t-tests, correlation analysis, equivalence tests, and structural equation models to evaluate QLICP-GM.

RESULTS: The test-retest reliability for all domains and the overall scale was above 0.85. Internal consistency alpha values for all domains except social function domain were above 0.70. The alpha value and split-half reliability of the overall scale were 0.88 and 0.93, respectively. Correlation analyses and structural equation models displayed good construction validity of the scale. It also showed good criterion-related validity when FACT-G was used as the criterion.

CONCLUSION: QLICP-GM can be used to measure QOL for cancer patients with good reliability and validity.