Abstract

PEREIRA, Filomena Moreira Pinto  and  SANTOS, Célia Samarina Vilaça de Brito. Study of cultural adaptation and validation of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy -General in palliative care units. Rev. Enf. Ref. [online]. 2011, vol.serIII, n.5, pp.45-54. ISSN 0874-0283.  https://doi.org/10.12707/RIII1041.

This study aims to validate the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G) version 4 by Cella et al. (1993) for the Portuguese culture as far as end-of-life oncology patients, treated in palliative care units, are concerned. This scale was developed to measure the general quality of life of oncology patients in 4 domains: Physical Well-Being (PWB); Functional Well-Being (FWB); Social/Family Well-Being (SWB) and Emotional Well-Being (EWB). The questionnaire survey, already translated into Portuguese by the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT) Organization, was applied to a group of 346 patients. Results revealed that this instrument shows good overall internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha 0.91), good test-retest reliability (r of 0.99) and a split-half of r of 0.57. Principal Components Analysis, followed by convergent and discriminant validity tests of the items, demonstrated that the FACT-G under analysis is consistent with its initial construct. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the scale was analyzed, and this showed that it was discriminative about gender and religion. Therefore this instrument is reliable, valid and sensitive for the study of life quality of end-of-life oncology patients, treated in palliative care units.

Keywords : quality of life; end-of-life patients; palliative care.

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