Context: Assessment of dyspnea in patients with advanced cancer is challenging. Cancer Dyspnea Scale (CDS) is a multidimensional scale developed for the measurement of dyspnea. It is available only in Japanese, English, and Swedish and has not been validated before in the Indian languages.
Objective: The objective was to describe the process of validation and reliability testing of CDS in Indian advanced cancer patients.
Methods: This is a prospective observational study conducted in the palliative care clinic of a tertiary cancer center in Mumbai. The English version of CDS was translated into Indian languages-Hindi (CDS-H) and Marathi (CDS-M). One hundred twenty newly registered eligible patients (60 for CDS-H and 60 for CDS-M) were enrolled into the study consecutively. They were asked to fill CDS (translated version) and Visual Analogue Scale for dyspnea. Only baseline measures were used.
Results: Validity was separately analyzed for CDS-H and CDS-M. The results showed good construct validity between CDS-H and CDS-M. Intersubscale correlation was done by calculating the Pearson's correlation coefficient (mean r = 0.64 and 0.764 for CDS-H and CDS-M, respectively). Convergent validity was calculated by computing the correlation of each factor with VAS-D scores and was found statistically significant (P < 0.001; average r ranging from 0.706 to 0.714). Reliability of the scale was determined by its internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficient ranging from 0.716 to 0.879).
Conclusion: This study demonstrates that CDS-H and CDS-M are valid and reliable multidimensional scales, which can be used to assess dyspnea in patients with advanced cancer.
Keywords: Advanced cancer; Cancer Dyspnea Scale; dyspnea; palliative care.
Copyright © 2017 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.