title: General population and cancer patient norms for the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G).
abstract: Given the number of new cancer cases diagnosed each year and the increases in survival rates, the importance of having a clinically useful health-related quality of life (HRQOL) instrument has increased. The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G) is one such instrument that has been used worldwide to assess HRQOL. Previously, the use of the FACT-G had been limited because of a lack of published normative data. Normative data are useful for consumers to place their results in an appropriate context by comparing their scores of individuals or group of individuals to a reference group. Here, we present normative data for the FACT-G for two reference groups: (a) a sample of the general U.S. adult population and (b) a large, heterogeneous sample of adult patients with cancer. In addition, we demonstrate various uses of the normative data.
authors.affiliation: Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60201, USA. p-brucker@northwestern.edu
authors.forename: Penny S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Brucker
authors.forename: Kathleen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yost
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cashy
authors.forename: Kimberly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Webster
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cella
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D012016:Reference Values; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States