A new scale for assessing patients' psychosocial adjustment to medical illness.

The Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale (PAIS) was administered to 37 Hodgkin's disease patients and 38 parents of children with Hodgkin's disease or solid tumour, and the scores were analysed for inter-rater reliability as well as construct and criterion validity. A significant inter-rater reliability coefficient was obtained for the total scale score, and also for 6 of the 7 subscale scores. The 7 subscale scores were shown to be relatively independent of each other, with 5 contributing strongly to the total score. Subscales analysed for criterion validity were shown to correlate significantly with independent assessments of their domains of adjustment. Results indicate that the PAIS can be administered by a diverse group of interviewers with an acceptable degree of reliability and with initial confidence in its validity.