Predicting psychological distress in patients with cancer: conceptual basis and reliability evaluation of a self-report questionnaire.

BACKGROUND/MATERIALS AND METHODS: A battery of instruments intended to predict the likelihood of future psychosocial distress in patients with cancer was developed and tested. The battery consists of newly-developed items for constructs relating to social support and to past coping experiences. Embedded within the past coping items are items on future illness-dependent expectations. The battery also incorporates previously developed instruments for recent stressful life events (Sarason) and the presence of anxiety or depression (SCL-90-R). The reliability of the entire instrument was determined in 2 similar groups of patients with cancer.The illness-dependent expectations items were stable and internally consistent. The past coping and social support items possessed stability, but did not possess sufficient internal consistency for either to be used as a scale. The recent stressful life event scores were not stable in either patient group over the two week retest interval. For the SCL-90-R, internal consistencies and stability coefficients are acceptable for all symptom dimensions with the exception of the stability coefficient for hostility.