Reliability and validity of the functional assessment of cancer therapy-ovarian.
OBJECTIVE
To report the reliability and validity of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Ovarian (FACT-O) in a consecutive series of outpatients with epithelial ovarian cancer.


METHODS
Two hundred thirty-two ovarian cancer patients attending an outpatient gynecologic oncology clinic completed questionnaires at baseline. The patients' FACT-O scores were compared with their performance status, disease stage, treatment status, and other factors hypothesized to be related to quality of life. Patients received a second questionnaire either one week after baseline to assess the instrument's test-retest reliability and/or two months after baseline to evaluate its sensitivity to change in performance status.


RESULTS
Internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the FACT-O were adequate. Overall, the scales correlated with other measures as expected; all correlations were in the hypothesized direction. Patients with advanced disease, poor performance status, and who were receiving active treatment had lower scores on physical, functional, and ovarian cancer-specific scales. The total FACT-O and emotional well-being scores were lower for patients with poor performance status and patients in active treatment. The FACT-O total and all subscale scores except emotional well-being were sensitive to decreases in performance status.


CONCLUSIONS
Overall, the FACT-O provides a reliable and valid assessment of the quality of life of women with ovarian cancer, and is appropriate as a brief quality of life assessment in clinical trials and descriptive studies.
Basen-Engquist
K
K
Department of Behavioral Science, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
Bodurka-Bevers
D
D
Fitzgerald
M A
MA
Webster
K
K
Cella
D
D
Hu
S
S
Gershenson
D M
DM
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D004644:Emotions; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012944:Social Support; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards; D016896:Treatment Outcome