The Use of Weighted Scores with the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT) Scales

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1995

Department

Psychology

Abstract

An adaptation of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT) was administered to 102 cancer patients who were undergoing outpatient chemotherapy. Unweighted scores and scores weighted by patient preference were calculated. Weighted scores were calculated by two different methods, and scores obtained by these two methods were compared. Additionally, differences in the importance of the different domains of quality of life to the patient sample were explored. Relationship with Doctor was most important to the patients and Physical Well-being was least important. These results suggest that weighted scores can provide potentially important information to clinicians and researchers that is not available with unweighted scores. The weighting method one might choose to use depends on patient and study considerations. The authors offer several suggestions for future research, including whether weights change over the course of the disease, whether changes occur in the relative ranking of domain weights, and whether sex differences affect weights.

Publication Title

Journal of Psychosocial Oncology

Volume

13

Issue

4

First Page

57

Last Page

77

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