Snowden Austyn, White Craig A, Christie Zara, Murray Esther, McGowan Clare, Scott Rhona
School of Health Nursing and Midwifery, University of the West of Scotland.
Br J Nurs. 2011;20(4):220-7. doi: 10.12968/bjon.2011.20.4.220.
The Distress Thermometer (DT) is a well validated screening tool, demonstrably sensitive and reasonably specific to the construct of distress in cancer. Its brevity makes it ideal to incorporate into a system of distress management. To ascertain how far this idea has been developed in practice, and to support future research, a literature review was undertaken. Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Embase, ASSIA, British Nursing Index, AMED, CCTR, and HMIC were systematically searched. Forty studies were reviewed that examined the function of the DT alone, together with the problem list (PL), and/or other validated measures. The majority of studies validated the DT against other robust measures of distress in order to establish 'caseness' in these populations, and establish factors associated with distress. Many of the studies recommended that further research should test their findings in clinical practice. A small section of the literature focused on the clinical utility of the DT as a facilitator of consultations, and found it to have potential in this regard. It is concluded that there is enough validation research, and in line with the majority of these studies' recommendations, future research should focus on the utility of DT as part of a structured distress management programme.
苦恼温度计（DT）是一种经过充分验证的筛查工具，对癌症患者的苦恼状况具有显著的敏感性和合理的特异性。其简洁性使其非常适合纳入苦恼管理系统。为了确定这一理念在实践中的发展程度，并为未来的研究提供支持，我们进行了一项文献综述。我们系统地检索了Medline、CINAHL、PsycINFO、Embase、ASSIA、英国护理索引、AMED、CCTR和HMIC。我们对40项研究进行了综述，这些研究单独考察了DT的功能，以及与问题清单（PL）和/或其他经过验证的测量方法一起的功能。大多数研究将DT与其他可靠的苦恼测量方法进行了验证，以便在这些人群中确定“病例”，并确定与苦恼相关的因素。许多研究建议进一步的研究应在临床实践中检验其结果。一小部分文献关注DT作为咨询促进工具的临床效用，并发现它在这方面具有潜力。结论是，有足够的验证研究，并且根据这些研究中的大多数建议，未来的研究应关注DT作为结构化苦恼管理计划一部分的效用。
