Post-traumatic growth in advanced cancer patients receiving palliative care.

GOALS OF WORK: To develop the Greek version of the Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI-Gr), and assess its psychometric properties in a palliative care patient sample.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: The scale was translated with the forward-backward procedure to Greek. It was administered twice, with a 3-day interval, to 131 eligible patients with advanced cancer. Together with the PTGI, the patients also completed the Greek version of the Impact of Events Scale-Revised scale (IES-R-Gr). The reliability was assessed by the internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficients), test/retest (Spearman's r value), and inter-item correlations. Validity was demonstrated by factor analysis, inter-scale correlations, construct validity with the IES-R-Gr, and combined with the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status.

MAIN RESULTS: The PTGI-Gr yielded a five-factor structure, explaining 73.5% of the variance. Cronbach's alphas for the five factors ranged from .66 to .87, respectively. Overall test-retest reliability was satisfactory with a range between .85 and .92 (p<.0005), and inter-item correlations ranged between .47 and .63. Inter-scale correlations were found satisfactory (p<.0005, p<.005, and p<.05). Validity as performed using combined validity analysis showed good results. Satisfactory construct validity was supported by the correlation analysis between the PTGI-Gr and the IES-R-Gr scales.

CONCLUSIONS: PTGI-Gr is an instrument with satisfactory psychometric properties, and is a valid research tool for the post-traumatic growth of advanced cancer patients.