Reproducibility of functional assessment of Cancer therapy-fatigue (FACT-F) questionnaire for cancer patients

ABSTRACT

Objective: The objective of this study was evaluating the reproducibility in Portuguese of Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Fatigue (FACT-F) questionnaire for cancer patients by applying it according to the test-retest method. Material and Methods: Subjects were 85 cancer patients with an average age of 51.0 years, being 56 (65.9%) women and 29 (34.1%) men. FACT-F questionnaire consists of 40 items, divided in five domains, and is applied for evaluating quality of life and fatigue in patients with cancer. We used as a measuring tool intraclass correlation coefficient values obtained from two measures of test-retest and scatter plot proposed by Bland-Altman. Results: In 36.5% of cases the questionnaire was self-administered, and in 63.5% of the cases read by an interviewer and filled after verbal answer. Intraclass correlation coefficient values found for the domains were physical well-being 0.72; social/family well-being 0.91; emotional well-being 0.90; functional well-being 0.86; fatigue subscale 0.88, and for the FACT-F 0.91. The Bland-Altman plot showed to be adequate, since most points were within the limits of reliability. Conclusions: FACT-F questionnaire in Portuguese has good test-retest reproducibility in patients with different types of cancer, performance status and stages.