• Yasemin Yildirim, Yasemin Tokem, Nilufer Bozkurt, Cicek Fadiloglu, Meltem Uyar, and Ruchan Uslu.
• Department of Internal Medicine Nursing, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey. yasemin.kyildirim@ege.edu.tr
• Asian Pac J Cancer P. 2011 Jan 1;12(12):3389-96.

AimThe Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS) is a multidimensional tool developed to evaluate measure the prevalence, characteristics and distress of common symptoms related to cancer. A validated Turkish version has now become available. The aim of this study was to evaluate its reliability and validity.MethodsOne hundred-twenty patients were included into this study. The MSAS, The Rotterdam Symptom Checklist (RSCL), and Karnofsky Performance Status Scale (KPSS) were used for data collection. Content and criterion validities were examined. Reliability analyses of the MSAS were performed using internal consistency reliability and test-retest reliability.ResultsThe most frequently reported symptom (90%) was problems with sexual interest or activity. Item-total correlations ranged between 0.03 and 0.64. There was a high correlation between total MSAS and the RSCL (r=0.875, p<0.01). The internal consistency reliabilities of subscales of the MSAS and total MSAS were moderately high, with Cronbach alpha coefficients ranging from 0.71 to 0.84. The MSAS's test - re-test reliability was 0.78.ConclusionThe MSAS for cancer patients was determined to be a valid and reliable instrument for the use in the Turkish population. It is recommended that the MSAS-Turkish version can be used as a tool for comprehensive symptom assessment in planning nursing care for cancer patients.

23 keywords...

hide…