Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA.
School of Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA.
Psychooncology. 2022 Aug;31(8):1267-1274. doi: 10.1002/pon.5989. Epub 2022 Jul 8.
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) distress thermometer (DT) was developed as a brief screening tool for detecting distress in cancer patients. Conceptually, distress was considered a more acceptable and inclusive term than other psychological terms such as depression or anxiety. It is used extensively in the United States and other English-speaking countries. We aim to describe the translation and validation methods of the DT and describe the recommended cutoff scores used to identify cancer patients experiencing clinically significant distress.
Nine bibliographic databases were searched using keywords to identify original research studies for non-English speaking countries' cancer patients. Full articles were independently assessed for inclusion and data extraction by two authors.
The review of 4442 articles yielded 39 articles that validated the DT. We identified 20 languages in 25 countries. In all but one country, investigators were able to agree upon a word or phrase that meant distress in their native language that was subsequently validated against standardized instruments. Asian, Middle Eastern and European counties recommended cutoff score of 4 or 5 to identify clinically significant distress; however, European Union countries had a range of 2 to 7.
Use of the translated DT with non-English speaking cancer patients provides a simple and quick tool to identify high distress. Similar to NCCN, the cutoff score of 4 or 5 was suggested by 78% of the studies; however, more studies of different types of cancer and within and among more countries will strengthen a recommended global DT cutoff score.
美国国家综合癌症网络（NCCN）的苦恼温度计（DT）是作为一种检测癌症患者苦恼的简短筛查工具而开发的。从概念上讲，苦恼被认为是一个比其他心理术语（如抑郁或焦虑）更能被接受和包容的术语。它在美国和其他英语国家被广泛使用。我们旨在描述 DT 的翻译和验证方法，并描述用于识别经历临床显著苦恼的癌症患者的建议截断分数。
使用关键词搜索了 9 个文献数据库，以确定非英语国家癌症患者的原始研究。两名作者独立评估纳入标准和数据提取。
对 4442 篇文章的综述得出了 39 篇验证 DT 的文章。我们确定了 25 个国家的 20 种语言。除了一个国家之外，研究人员都能够在他们的母语中找到一个表示苦恼的单词或短语，然后用标准工具对其进行验证。亚洲、中东和欧洲国家建议使用 4 或 5 的截断分数来识别临床显著的苦恼；然而，欧盟国家的截断分数范围为 2 到 7。
使用经过翻译的 DT 对非英语癌症患者进行评估，提供了一种简单快捷的工具来识别高苦恼。与 NCCN 相似，78%的研究建议使用 4 或 5 的截断分数；然而，需要更多不同类型癌症的研究，以及更多国家的研究，才能加强对全球 DT 截断分数的建议。
