Quality of life of lung cancer patients: Validation of the Taiwan Chinese version of the EORTC QLQ-C30 and QLQ-LC13

The purpose of this study was to test the validity and reliability of the Taiwan Chinese translation of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core-30 (EORTC QLQ-C30, version 3) and Quality of Life Questionnaire Lung Cancer-13 (QLQ-LC13) questionnaires. Consecutively 51 patients with lung cancer undergoing active chemotherapy and 48 such patients undergoing regular follow-up completed the questionnaires. The intraclass correlation between test and retest ranged from 0.46 to 0.85 for the QLQ-C30 and was 0.76 for dyspnea for the QLQ-LC13. The kappa coefficients between test and retest ranged from 0.51 to 0.73 for single items of the QLQ-C30 and 0.49-0.68 for five of the nine items in the QLQ-LC13. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients were > or = 0.70 for all scales of the two questionnaires apart from that of cognitive functioning. The correlation coefficients between indices measuring similar dimensions of the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the SF-36 questionnaires ranged from 0.43 to 0.73, and that between the dyspnea scales of the two EORTC questionnaires was 0.70. Patients in the follow-up group revealed higher scores of global status/quality of life, and lower scores of nausea/vomiting, as also physical functioning. The questionnaires could also detect expected adverse effects of radiotherapy, cisplatin, and paclitaxel.