%0 Journal Article
%T Quality of life in patients with gastric cancer: translation and psychometric evaluation of the Iranian version of EORTC QLQ-STO22
%A Sanamber Sadighi
%A Ali Montazeri
%A Zahra Sedighi
%A Mohammad Mohagheghi
%A Hossein Froutan
%J BMC Cancer
%D 2009
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2407-9-305
%X Forward-backward procedure was applied to translate the English language version of the EORTC QLQ-STO22 into Persian (Iranian language). Then, the questionnaire and the EORTC core quality of life instrument (QLQ-C30) were administered to a sample of patients with confirmed diagnosis of gastric cancer. All patients filled in questionnaires before and after one month of treatment. Patients were divided into two groups based on intension of treatment (curative vs. palliative). Reliability and validity of the module was tested by internal consistency and known group comparisons, respectively.In all, 105 patients were entered into the study. Cronbach's alpha for multi-item scales (to test reliability) ranged from 0.54 to 0.87. The questionnaire discriminated well between clinically distinct subgroups of patients both before and after treatment lending support to its convergent and clinical validity.Overall, the Iranian version of the EORTC QLQ-STO22 demonstrated a good reliability and clinical validity to support its use in combination with core questionnaire in outcome studies of gastric cancer in Iran. However, using the QLQ-STO22 in a wide range of Iranian patients with gastric cancer should allow further confirmation for its psychometric properties.Although mortality rates due to gastric cancer had been declining for several decades, on a worldwide scale its incidence is still high, and it is the second leading cause of cancer death, behind lung cancer [1,2]. Recent efforts to improve survival include pre and post-operative chemotherapy and chemo-radiotherapy. However, improvements in survival with multi-modal treatment may also be associated with increased toxic side effects. Therefore full evaluation of new treatments of gastric cancer should be included patient-reported outcome measures such as health related quality of life (HRQOL) as well as assessment of biomarkers, pathologic responses or survival outcomes.Although quality of life in patients with gastric canc
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/9/305