Revision and psychometric testing of the City of Hope Quality of Life-Ostomy Questionnaire.
OBJECTIVE
Ostomies may be performed for bowel or urinary diversion, and occur in both cancer and non-cancer patients. Impact on physical, psychological, social and spiritual well-being is not unexpected, but has been minimally described in the literature. The City of Hope Quality of Life (COH-QOL)-Ostomy Questionnaire is an adult patient self-report instrument designed to assess quality of life. This report focuses on the revision and psychometric testing of this questionnaire.


METHODS
The revised COH-QOL-Ostomy Questionnaire involved in-depth patient interviews and expert panel review. The format consisted of a 13-item disease and demographic section, a 34-item forced-choice section, and a 41-item linear analogue scaled section. A mailed survey to California members of the United Ostomy Association resulted in a 62% response rate (n = 1513). Factor analysis was conducted to refine the instrument. Construct validity involved testing a number of hypotheses identifying contrasting groups.


RESULTS
Factor analysis confirmed the conceptual framework. Reliability of subscales ranged from 0.77 to 0.90. The questionnaire discriminated between subpopulations with specific concerns.


CONCLUSIONS
Overall, the analyses provide evidence for the validity and reliability of the COH-QOL-Ostomy Questionnaire as a comprehensive, multidimensional self-report questionnaire for measuring quality of life in patients with intestinal ostomies.
Grant
Marcia
M
Nursing Research and Education, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, California 91010, USA. mgrant@coh.org
Ferrell
Betty
B
Dean
Grace
G
Uman
Gwen
G
Chu
David
D
Krouse
Robert
R
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002140:California; D004766:Enterostomy / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires