An investigation of anxiety about radiotherapy deploying the Radiotherapy Categorical Anxiety Scale.
BACKGROUND
Radiotherapy is one of the major methods for treating cancer, but many patients undergoing radiotherapy have deep concerns about receiving radiation treatment. This problem is not generally appreciated and has not been adequately studied.


METHODS
The objective of this investigation was to empirically investigate the anxieties that cancer patients feel towards radiotherapy by using questionnaires to classify and quantitatively measure their concerns. A preliminary interview to develop a questionnaire was carried out with 48 patients receiving radiotherapy to discover their anxieties about on-going treatments. Subsequently, a main study was performed using a questionnaire with 185 patients to classify their types of anxiety and to ascertain the reliability and validity of the responses. Confirmatory factor analysis was then carried out with a 17-item Radiotherapy Categorical Anxiety Scale.


RESULTS
Three anxiety factors were abstracted by factor analysis: (1) adverse effects of radiotherapy, (2) environment of radiotherapy, and (3) treatment effects of radiotherapy. Reliability, content validity, and concurrent validity were obtained. The adequacy of the three-factor model of anxiety concerning radiotherapy was confirmed.


CONCLUSIONS
A 17-item Radiotherapy Categorical Anxiety Scale was formulated to quantitatively measure the specific types of anxiety among cancer patients receiving radiotherapy.
Shimotsu
Sakie
S
Department of Social Welfare, Kyushu University of Health and Welfare, 1714-1 Yoshino-cho, Nobeoka, 882-8508, Miyazaki, Japan. ahead1973@ybb.ne.jp
Karasawa
Kumiko
K
Kawase
Eri
E
Ito
Kana
K
Saito
Anneyuko I
AI
Izawa
Hiromi
H
Horikawa
Naoshi
N
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011878:Radiotherapy / Q000523:psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Health Psychol. 1984;3(6):535-51
6536502
Anticancer Res. 1998 May-Jun;18(3C):2271-3
9703801
Cancer. 1985 Sep 1;56(5):1056-61
4016697
Cancer. 1977 Jul;40(1):180-4
880549
Oncol Nurs Forum. 1991 Sep-Oct;18(7):1199-203
1945966
Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2001 Dec 1;51(5):1328-35
11728694
Cancer Nurs. 1995 Jun;18(3):206-14
7600552