• Kyriaki Mystakidou, Eleni Tsilika, Efi Parpa, Emmanuela Katsouda, Antonis Galanos, and Lambros Vlahos.
• Palliative Care Unit, Department of Radiology, University Areteion Hospital School of Medicine, 27 Korinthias Str., 115 26, Athens, Greece. mistakidou@yahoo.com
• Support Care Cancer. 2004 Dec 1;12(12):821-5.

Goals Of WorkThe aim of the present study was to validate the Greek version of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD) in a palliative care unit.Patients And MethodsThe scale was translated with the "forward-backward" procedure to Greek. It was administered twice, with a 1-week interval, to 120 patients with advanced cancer. Together with the HAD scale, the patients also completed the Spielberger State-Anxiety Scale (STAI-S).Main ResultsFactor analyses identified a two-factor solution corresponding to the original two subscales of the HAD, which were found to be correlated. The Greek version of the HAD had Cronbach's alphas for the anxiety and depression scales of 0.887 and 0.703, respectively. Validity as performed using known-group analysis showed good results. Both anxiety and depression subscales discriminated well between subgroups of patients differing in disease severity as defined by ECOG performance status. Correlations between the HAD scale and the STAI-S was 0.681 for the anxiety subscale and 0.485 for the depression subscale.ConclusionsThese psychometric properties of the Greek version of the HAD scale confirm it as a valid and reliable measure when administered to patients with advanced cancer.

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