title: The psychometric properties of the Hebrew version of the Memorial Symptom Assessment scale (MSAS-Heb) in patients with breast cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To date, no report of the psychometric properties of the Hebrew version of the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS-Heb) has been available, which may be a barrier to comprehensively assessing symptom frequency, severity, and distress in Israeli patients with cancer.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study aimed to translate the MSAS into Hebrew and to evaluate the psychometric properties in Israeli patients with cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  The original 32-item MSAS was translated into Hebrew using the forward and backward procedure, and administered to female patients with early stage breast cancer (stages I-IIIA) who had received adjuvant chemotherapy. In addition, patients completed a demographic questionnaire, the Lee Fatigue Scale, the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale, the General Sleep Disturbance Scale, a numeric rating scale for pain intensity, the Multidimensional Quality of Life Scale-Cancer and the Karnofsky Performance Status Scale.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A sample of 110 patients was recruited (mean age 45.5 ± 10.1 years). The most frequent symptoms were hair loss (96.4%), lack of energy (88.2%) and "I do not look like myself" (80.9%), and the most infrequent were vomiting (7.3%), problems with urination (10.9%), and shortness of breath (20.9%). Cronbach alpha coefficients for the MSAS-Heb subscales (i.e., physical, psychological and global distress index) ranged from 0.78 to 0.90. All MSAS-Heb subscales and all the other questionnaires used in this study were significantly correlated (P < 0.0001), with expected directions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The MSAS-Heb is a valid and a reliable measure and should be a useful tool in the clinical arena and in future studies for evaluation of multiple symptoms in Israeli patients with cancer.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. Electronic address: doritpud@research.haifa.ac.il.
authors.forename: Dorit
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pud
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology; D017024:Chemotherapy, Adjuvant / Q000009:adverse effects; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D007802:Language; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Cancer; Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale; symptoms; validation