Abstract
Objective: The aim of this study is to elucidate underlying distinctive common features of currently used measures.
Patients: This study was conducted as a part of nationwide cross-sectional and observational study of “Prostate cancer background, quality of life (QOL), patient’s satisfaction and treatment survey by Japan Prostate Cancer Study Group (J-CaP)”. PCa survivors were invited to answer Short Form 36 (SF-36), Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC), Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT) through the web page of J-CaP.
Methods: Significant conceptual components of three health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaires: EPIC, FACT, and SF-36 were identified by principle component analysis in Japanese patients.
Results: All of the questions from EPIC, FACT, and SF-36 were classified into 9 categories by principle component analysis. Our result suggests that a more feasible and integrated HRQoL measure can be created based on those components identified in our study.
Conclusion: Three HRQoL questionnaires containing 128 questions in total could be narrowed down to 9 principle components. Our future assignment is to create an integrated and more feasible version of scoring system that comprehensively covers these 9 components.
© 2016 The Juntendo Medical Society. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original source is properly credited.
