Paul B. Jacobsen|Kristine A. Donovan|Peter C. Trask|Stewart B. Fleishman|James Zabora|Frank Baker|Jimmie Holland
Screening for psychologic distress in ambulatory cancer patients
Moffitt Cancer Center|Moffitt Cancer Center|Miriam Hospital|St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center|University of America|Catholic University of America|American Cancer Society|Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
abstract background based evidence psychologic distress often goes unrecognized although common among cancer patients clinical practice guidelines recommend routine screening distress study authors sought determine whether singleitem distress thermometer dt compared favorably longer measures currently used screen distress methods patients n 380 recruited 5 sites completed dt identified presence absence 34 problems using standardized list participants also completed 14item hospital anxiety depression scale hads 18item version brief symptom inventory bsi18 established cutoff scores identifying clinically significant distress results receiver operating characteristic roc curve analyses dt scores yielded area curve estimates relative hads cutoff score 080 bsi18 cutoff scores 078 indicative good overall accuracy roc analyses also showed dt cutoff score 4 optimal sensitivity specificity relative hads bsi18 cutoff scores additional analyses indicated compared patients dt scores lt 4 patients dt scores 4 likely women poorer performance status report practical family emotional physical problems p 005 conclusions findings confirm singleitem dt compares favorably longer measures used screen distress dt cutoff score 4 yielded optimal sensitivity specificity general cancer population relative established cutoff scores longer measures use cutoff score identified patients range problems likely reflect psychologic distress cancer 2005 2005 american cancer society