Psychometric evaluation of Self-Assessed Support Needs of women with breast cancer Scale.
OBJECTIVE
The issue of self-assessed support needs of women with breast cancer has not been studied enough although it is an important subject for women's health in Turkey. Most of the studies concerning breast cancer patients are about quality of life and life satisfaction. This study aimed to adapt an English version of the Self-Assessed Support Needs of women with breast cancer Scale for Turkish women with breast cancer and to evaluate its psychometric properties.


METHODS
A descriptive study.


METHODS
The sample consisted of 143 women with breast cancer who attended the outpatient and inpatient oncology clinics. Data were collected by a structured questionnaire including demographic characteristics and the Self-Assessed Support Needs of women with breast cancer Scale. Item analysis, principal components analysis, internal consistency reliability and Cronbach's alpha were used to measure the psychometric properties of the 54-item scale.


RESULTS
In the assessment of construct validity, the principal components method of factor analysis was performed. Seven factors were identified with eigenvalues >1 explained 52.1% of the total variance (diagnosis, treatment, support, femininity and body image, family and friends, information and after care). Internal reliability coefficients of these seven factor-based scales were found to be substantial, ranging from 0.71 to 0.84.


CONCLUSIONS
The present study provides evidence of the Self-Assessed Support Needs of women with breast cancer Scale's validity, reliability and acceptability. This scale should be further evaluated; with a large enough sample size, in different regions in Turkey and diverse populations of world.


CONCLUSIONS
The scale has potential applications. It can be used both as a research or a regular screening tool with clinical settings. The use of the scale in clinics will enable identification of self-management activities in patients with breast cancer. Assessment of the self-assessed support needs of women with breast cancer should be an essential part of nursing practice.
Erci
Behice
B
Department of Public Health Nursing, School of Nursing, Atatürk University, Erzurum, Turkey. behiceerci@hotmail.com
D000328:Adult; D000359:Aftercare; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001828:Body Image; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D033062:Friends / Q000523:psychology; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008408:Mastectomy / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D020380:Needs Assessment / Q000458:organization & administration*; D024802:Nurse's Role; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D011594:Psychometrics; D012944:Social Support; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D014175:Translating; D014421:Turkey