Meaning in life for patients with cancer: validation of the Life Attitude Profile-Revised Scale.

AIM

This paper is a report of a study to adapt the Life Attitude Profile-Revised Scale for Turkish patients with cancer and to evaluate its psychometric properties.

BACKGROUND

Cancer is a life-threatening illness that can challenge the experience of meaning in life. Meaning in life is a multidimensional concept involving meaning and purpose in life, as well as the motivation to find meaning and purpose in life. As meaning in life may be influenced by culture, a culture-sensitive tool is needed for its measurement.

METHODS

A convenience sample of 199 patients with cancer at a Turkish university hospital completed a structured questionnaire including demographic characteristics and the Life Attitude Profile-Revised Scale for Patients with Cancer in 2006. Item analysis, principal components analysis, internal consistency reliability and Cronbach's alpha were used to measure the psychometric properties of the items of the scale.

FINDINGS

In the assessment of construct validity, identified four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 explained 46.91% of the total variance. Internal reliability coefficients of these four factor-based scales were 0.73 and 0.82 respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study provides evidence of the Life Attitude Profile-Revised Scale's validity, reliability and acceptability. This scale should be further evaluated with a larger sample, in different regions in Turkey and diverse populations of world. The scale has potential applications for use both in research and as a screening tool in clinical settings.