Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10064, USA.
Center for Health Measurement, Department of Population Health Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA.
Qual Life Res. 2018 Feb;27(2):291-319. doi: 10.1007/s11136-017-1692-4. Epub 2017 Sep 6.
Previous work in pediatric oncology has found that clinicians and parents tend to under-report the frequency and severity of treatment-related symptoms compared to child self-report. As such, there is a need to identify high-quality self-report instruments to be used in pediatric oncology research studies. This study's objective was to conduct a systematic literature review of existing English language instruments used to measure self-reported symptoms in children and adolescents undergoing cancer treatment.
A comprehensive literature search was conducted in MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO to identify relevant articles published through November 10, 2016. Using pre-specified inclusion/exclusion criteria, six trained reviewers carefully screened abstracts and full-text articles for eligibility.
There were 7738 non-duplicate articles identified in the literature search. Forty articles met our eligibility criteria, and within these articles, there were 38 self-report English symptom instruments. Most studies evaluated only cross-sectional psychometric properties, such as reliability or validity. Ten studies assessed an instrument's responsiveness or ability to detect changes in symptoms over time. Eight instruments met our criteria for use in future longitudinal pediatric oncology studies.
This systematic review aids pediatric oncology researchers in identifying and selecting appropriate symptom measures with strong psychometric evidence for their studies. Enhancing the child's voice in pediatric oncology research studies allows us to better understand the impact of cancer and its treatment on the lives of children.
儿科肿瘤学的先前研究发现，与儿童自我报告相比，临床医生和家长往往会低估与治疗相关的症状的频率和严重程度。因此，需要确定高质量的自我报告工具，以便在儿科肿瘤学研究中使用。本研究的目的是对用于测量接受癌症治疗的儿童和青少年自我报告症状的现有英语语言工具进行系统的文献回顾。
通过 MEDLINE/PubMed、EMBASE、CINAHL 和 PsycINFO 进行全面的文献检索，以确定截至 2016 年 11 月 10 日发表的相关文章。使用预先规定的纳入/排除标准，六名经过培训的评审员仔细筛选摘要和全文文章以确定其是否符合资格。
文献检索中确定了 7738 篇非重复文章。40 篇文章符合我们的入选标准，其中有 38 篇自我报告的英语症状工具。大多数研究仅评估了横断面心理测量学特性，如可靠性或有效性。十项研究评估了仪器随时间推移检测症状变化的响应能力或能力。有八项仪器符合我们在未来进行纵向儿科肿瘤学研究的标准。
本系统评价有助于儿科肿瘤学研究人员识别和选择具有强大心理测量学证据的适当症状测量方法，用于他们的研究。在儿科肿瘤学研究中增强儿童的声音使我们能够更好地了解癌症及其治疗对儿童生活的影响。
