The FACT-B is appropriate for use in oncology clinical trials, as well as in clinical practice. It demonstrates ease of administration, brevity, reliability, validity, and sensitivity to change.

The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General and five disease-specific subscales have been translated successfully into Spanish using a thorough translation and initial validation methodology. The methods and data provide a model for preparing a health status questionnaire for cross-cultural validation. The questionnaire is available for use in clinical trials and clinical practice.

The TT is a practical, user-friendly data acquisition method that provides greater opportunities to measure self-reported outcomes in patients with a range of literacy skills.

This study investigated the impact of demographic, social, and clinical factors on cancer patients' self-ratings of health-related quality of life (HRQL). The sample consisted of 1342 ethnically diverse individuals in treatment at four member institutions of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG). Multivariable regression analyses were employed to determine the relationship between demographic variables (age, gender, race/ethnicity, socio-economic status (SES), living arrangement), clinical factors (performance status rating (PSR), disease type, disease stage), and social characteristics (spiritual beliefs, religious affiliation, relationship with physician) and five outcome measures of HRQL. The dependent variables, four dimensions of HRQL and overall HRQL, were measured by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G) Quality of Life Measurement System. The results indicated that the full set of predictor variables accounted for 45% of the variance in patients' reporting of overall HRQL, 25% of the variance in physical well-being, 27% of the variance in social well-being, 30% of the variance in emotional well-being, and 41% of the variance in the area of functional well-being. The findings suggest that there are multiple factors that influence an individual's assessment of their HRQL and that these factors need to be considered in the management and treatment of culturally diverse cancer patients.

To assess patients' satisfaction with pharmacists, seven questions were developed with semistructured input from 5 pharmacy practice faculty members and 11 patients with cancer. The study identified 1617 English- and Spanish-speaking patients with cancer or human immunodeficiency virus infection or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome who participated in a multisite validation of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Scale. Of these, 1124 had seen a pharmacist in the past 7 days and therefore were eligible; 608 spoke English and 516 Spanish. The seven items on the Satisfaction with Pharmacist (SWiP) scale were rated on a five-point Likert scale (0 = not at all to 4 = very much). The reliability of the English and Spanish versions was evaluated by Cronbach's alpha coefficients. The unidimensionality and construct validity were analyzed with the Rasch rating scale model. The alpha coefficients for the English and Spanish versions were 0.90 and 0.92, respectively. Rasch analyses of item responses showed that none of the items in either language was a misfit, which supported their ability to measure a unidimensional construct. Item difficulty plots revealed that no item exhibited differential functioning, indicating that the items performed the same in both languages. The SWiP scale has reliable and valid psychometric properties in English and Spanish and can be used to document the value of the pharmacist-patient relationship. It is easy to administer and is ready for further use and evaluation to determine and document outcomes of pharmaceutical care.