IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v45y1997i8p1299-1309.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dimensions of quality of life expressed by men treated for metastatic prostate cancer

Author

Listed:
  • Clark, Jack A.
  • Wray, Nelda
  • Brody, Baruch
  • Ashton, Carol
  • Giesler, Brian
  • Watkins, Herbert

Abstract

Men who pursue active treatment for metastatic prostate cancer face a choice between medical or surgical castration. While both alternatives have documented side-effects (e.g. loss of libido, breast enlargement and tenderness, hot flashes, and nausea), their psychosocial impacts are not well understood. As part of a study of patients' treatment decision making, we have sought to construct a patient-based measure of the salient disease and treatment-related qualities of life experienced by these men subsequent to treatment. Focus groups (15 with patients, two with wives) were used to develop candidate Likert scale questionnaire items representing quality of life issues that patients said were important. These items were combined with assessments of symptoms, comorbidity, and generic measures of functional status and well-being in a mail survey of patients treated at the Houston VAMC and two other Houston hospitals (n = 201, response rate = 63%). Psychometric analyses (principal components and multitrait scaling) were used to identify distinct dimensions of life quality; correlations with generic measures, and symptom reports were used in validation analyses. Qualitative analyses of focus group data identified three major domains of life quality: self-perceptions, anxiety about the effects of treatment, and concern with the process of decision making and treatment. Psychometric analyses identified nine reliable and valid indicators of prostate cancer-related quality of life: body image, sexual problems, spouse affection, spouse worry, masculinity, cancer-related self-image, cancer distress, cancer acceptance, and regret of treatment decision. Internal consistency (alpha) ranged from 0.71 to 0.90. Correlations with reference scales (e.g. MOS Mental Health Index, Profile of Mood States) and symptom status supported concurrent validity. Prostate cancer patients perceive a number of important psychosocial consequences of their treatment. These consequences are represented by nine scales comprising a brief (35 items) disease and treatment sensitive health-related quality of life instrument, which we will use in monitoring the outcomes of patients' treatment choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Clark, Jack A. & Wray, Nelda & Brody, Baruch & Ashton, Carol & Giesler, Brian & Watkins, Herbert, 1997. "Dimensions of quality of life expressed by men treated for metastatic prostate cancer," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1299-1309, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:45:y:1997:i:8:p:1299-1309
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(97)00058-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paul Clay Sorum & Etienne Mullet & Junseop Shim & Sylvie Bonnin-Scaon & Gérard Chasseigne & Joël Cogneau, 2004. "Avoidance of Anticipated Regret: The Ordering of Prostate-Specific Antigen Tests," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 24(2), pages 149-159, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:45:y:1997:i:8:p:1299-1309. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.