Development of the Psycho-social Discomfort Scale (PsDS): investigation of psychometric properties among Japanese breast cancer survivors.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To develop a new scale to assess psycho-social discomfort in breast cancer (BC) survivors in Japanese society and to investigate its psychometric properties. METHOD: A total of 248 Japanese BC survivors completed both the Psycho-social Discomfort Scale (PsDS) and WHO Quality of Life BREF Japanese version (WHO QoL-Jp). A principal component factor analysis (with promax rotation) was performed, and internal consistency was examined using Cronbach's alpha. Divergent and convergent validities and criterion validity were examined using the Spearman's R. RESULTS: The factor analysis extracted three factors 'internalised stigma (IS)', 'social disclosure of BC (SD)', and 'psychological resources to live with BC (PR)'. The factors were moderately correlated. The scale had good internal consistency (alpha = 0.80). All sub-scales were inversely correlated with all the domains in the WHO QoL-Jp (r = -0.09 to -0.47). BC stage was significantly correlated with the SD sub-scale, and type of surgery was significantly correlated with the IS sub-scale. CONCLUSIONS: The PsDS has 25 items. It measures psycho-social discomfort that Japanese BC survivors experienced or were experiencing in their community. It has a simple factor structure, relatively good internal consistency, and a satisfactory divergent validity.