title: Measuring psychological consequences of screening: adaptation of the psychological consequences questionnaire into Dutch.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the psychometric properties of a Dutch adaptation of an originally Australian instrument measuring the psychological impact of breast cancer screening.
  
  
  METHODS
  The three subscales (emotional, physical, social) of the Psychological Consequences Questionnaire (PCQ) underwent formal linguistic and cultural translation. A total of 524 women under intensive surveillance because of increased breast cancer risk were asked to complete the questionnaire at 2 months prior to screening, at the day of the screening visit preceding the screening, and 1-4 weeks after screening. Acceptability, score distribution, internal consistency, scale structure, responsiveness to change and construct validity were analysed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Response rates were high (98-94%) and there were very few missing answers and non-unique answers. All scales had Cronbach's alphas > 0.70. The physical and social subscale showed ceiling effects. The item-own scale correlations were only slightly higher than the corresponding item-other scale correlations. Factor analysis showed that the assumed three separate subscales were replicated in our study. Pre- and post-screening effect sizes for the emotional scale were larger than for the other two scales. All PCQ scales correlated with the scales of two other psychological measures (p <or= 0.01). The emotional scale and the total PCQ score were able to differentiate between subgroups varying in affective risk perception (p <or= 0.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Dutch PCQ is useful in measuring psychological impact among women under intensive surveillance because of high breast cancer risk.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. a.rijnsburger@erasmusmc.nl
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Rijnsburger
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Essink-Bot
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van As
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cockburn
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: de Koning
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001943:Breast Neoplasms; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands; D011594:Psychometrics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires