title: Cross-cultural development of an EORTC questionnaire to assess health-related quality of life in patients with testicular cancer: the EORTC QLQ-TC26.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Testicular cancer (TC) is the most common cancer in young men, and its incidence is increasing. The low mortality rate makes quality of life (QOL) an important issue in this patient group. This study aimed to develop a supplementary module of the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire to assess TC-specific aspects of QOL.
  
  
  METHODS
  Questionnaire development was conducted according to guidelines from the EORTC Quality of Life Group. Phase I comprised generation of QOL issues relevant to TC patients through a literature search and interviews with patients and experts. Phase II included operationalization and assessment of item relevance. In phase III, items were pre-tested in a cross-cultural sample to assess issues such as understandability and intrusiveness of items.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In phase I and II, an initial list of 69 QOL issues possibly relevant to TC patients was refined through patient and expert interviews. The remaining 37 issues were operationalized into items and assessed for relevance and priority in an expert sample (n = 28) and a patient sample (n = 62) from Austria, Canada and the Netherlands. After revision of the item list, 26 items were considered eligible for pre-testing in phase III, in which 156 patients from Australia, Austria, Italy and Spain participated. All items passed criteria for pre-testing, thus forming the new EORTC QLQ-TC26.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The newly developed EORTC QLQ-TC26 is now available in several languages to assess QOL in TC patients receiving treatment and in TC survivors. Phase IV of questionnaire development will comprise international field testing, including extensive analysis of psychometric characteristics of the EORTC QLQ-TC26.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Innsbruck Medical University, Anichstr. 35, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria. bernhard.holzner@uki.at
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Holzner
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Efficace
authors.forename: Umberto
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Basso
authors.forename: Colin D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Neil K
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Aaronson
authors.forename: Juan I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Arraras
authors.forename: Allan B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Chow
authors.forename: Anne S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Oberguggenberger
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bottomley
authors.forename: Hannes
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Steiner
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Incrocci
authors.forename: Johannes M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Giesinger
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001315:Australia; D002170:Canada; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003469:Culture; D005060:Europe; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology; D013736:Testicular Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*