Screening for distress and needs: Findings from a multinational validation of the Adolescent and Young Adult Psycho‐Oncology Screening Tool with newly diagnosed patients

Objective Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) diagnosed with cancer commonly experience elevated psychological distress and need appropriate detection and management of the psychosocial impact of their illness and treatment. This paper describes the multinational validation of the Distress Thermomet...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psycho-oncology (Chichester, England) England), 2021-11, Vol.30 (11), p.1849-1858
Main Authors: Patterson, Pandora, D'Agostino, Norma M., McDonald, Fiona E. J., Church, Terry David, Costa, Daniel S. J., Rae, Charlene S., Siegel, Stuart E., Hu, James, Bibby, Helen, Stark, Dan P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Anxiety - diagnosis
Anxiety - epidemiology
Cancer
Child, Preschool
cross‐cultural comparisons
emotional distress
Humans
Mass Screening
Medical diagnosis
Medical screening
multinational perspectives
Needs assessment
Neoplasms - psychology
Newly diagnosed
Oncology
Original
Psycho-Oncology
Psychological assessment
Psychological distress
Psychosocial factors
Stress, Psychological - psychology
Surveys and Questionnaires
Teenagers
validation studies
Well being
Young Adult
Young adults
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Summary:Objective Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) diagnosed with cancer commonly experience elevated psychological distress and need appropriate detection and management of the psychosocial impact of their illness and treatment. This paper describes the multinational validation of the Distress Thermometer (DT) for AYAs recently diagnosed with cancer and the relationship between distress and patient concerns on the AYA‐Needs Assessment (AYA‐NA). Methods AYA patients (N = 288; 15–29 years, Mage = 21.5 years, SDage = 3.8) from Australia (n = 111), Canada (n = 67), the UK (n = 85) and the USA (n = 25) completed the DT, AYA‐NA, Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS) and demographic measures within 3 months of diagnosis. Using the HADS as a criterion, receiver operating characteristics analysis was used to determine the optimal cut‐off score and meet the acceptable level of 0.70 for sensitivity and specificity. Correlations between the DT and HADS scores, prevalence of distress and AYA‐NA scores were reported. Results The DT correlated strongly with the HADS‐Total, providing construct validity evidence (r = 0.65, p 
ISSN:1057-9249
1099-1611
DOI:10.1002/pon.5757