Validation of the Slovenian version of Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale in female cancer patients.
BACKGROUND
The present study describes the translation process of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) into the Slovenian language and the testing of its reliability and validity on the psychological morbidity in female cancer patients.


METHODS
The English version of the HADS was translated into the Slovene language using the 'forward-backward' procedure. The questionnaire was used in a study of 202 female cancer patients together with a clinical structured interview (CSI) to measure psychological state. A biserial correlation coefficient was calculated.


RESULTS
The value of biserial correlation coefficient was 0.81 for the depression scale and 0.91 for the anxiety scale.


CONCLUSIONS
The validation process of the Slovenian HADS score version shows metric properties similar to those in international studies, suggesting that it measures the same constructs, in the same way, as the original HADS score form. This validation study of the Slovenian version of the HADS proved that it is an acceptable and valid measure of psychological distress among female cancer patients.
Miklavcic
Ilonka Vucko
IV
University Psychiatric Hospital Ljubljana, Studenec 48, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Snoj
Zvezdana
Z
Mlakar
Janez
J
Pregelj
Peter
P
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005833:Genital Neoplasms, Female / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D007802:Language; D008403:Mass Screening; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D017524:Slovenia