Cancer Inventory of Problem Situations

Abstract

The article describes an initial study evaluating the psychometric properties of the Cancer Inventory of Problem Situations (CIPS), a newly developed instrument for documenting the psychosocial and physical problems of cancer patients. The ClPS was completed by a heterogeneous sample of 306 cancer patients. A subsample of 71 compiled a second CIPS a week later; a second subsample of 87 patients completed the SCL-90-R, an index of psychological distress; and a third subsample of 22 participated in a comprehensive interview. The ClPS was found to have excellent test-retest reliability (mean for reliability coefficients, r = .89) and also correlated highly with the SCL-90-R (r = .69). Agreement in the types of problems identified by the ClPS and a trained interviewer was excellent. The CIPS proved to be more sensitive than the interview for assessing problems in seven important categories. Content validity was reevaluated and shown to be excellent. In addition, the items in the CIPS were factored into subscales of problem categories with alpha coefficients indicating internal consistency. All but one of the 22 patients interviewed found the instrument easy to understand, and the average time required to complete it was 18 minutes. The study indicated that the CIPS is reliable and valid and can be used in clinical settings to assess thc problems of individual cancer patients and in research settings to begin documenting the day-to-day problems of patients with different types of cancer.