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Assessing cancer-specific anxiety in Chinese men with prostate cancer: psychometric evaluation of the Chinese version of the Memorial Anxiety Scale for Prostate Cancer (MAX-PC)

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Abstract

Purpose

The Memorial Anxiety Scale for Prostate Cancer (MAX-PC) was developed to identify and assess cancer-specific anxiety among men with prostate cancer (PCa); however, there is no Chinese version. The aim of our study was to translate the English version of MAX-PC into Chinese and evaluate the psychometric properties of it.

Methods

The study cohort comprised 254 participants. Internal consistency including the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and item–total correlations were used to measure the reliability of the scale. Factor structure was analyzed by exploratory factor analysis and concurrent validity by comparing MAX-PC scores with anxiety subscale scores of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Divergent validity was assessed by correlating MAX-PC with HADS depression subscale, while discriminant ability by comparing differences in MAX-PC scores between different patient groups.

Results

The Chinese version of MAX-PC demonstrated good reliability; the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the total and three subscales (prostate cancer anxiety, PSA anxiety, and fear of recurrence) being 0.94, 0.93, 0.82, and 0.85, respectively. Exploratory factor analysis supported the three-factor structure of the scale established in the original version. Despite the somewhat underperformed divergent validity, the scale demonstrated good concurrent validity with a strong correlation with the HADS anxiety subscale (r = 0.71, p < 0.01). Moreover, discriminant ability was demonstrated by ability to differentiate between disease stages.

Conclusions

The MAX-PC Chinese version was confirmed to be a valid, reliable instrument and is thus appropriate for identifying and quantifying cancer-specific anxiety in Chinese PCa patients.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Qiqi Mao, Xiangyi Zheng, Chenjuan Ma, Yuxiang Zhu, Ben Liu, Shaohua Hu for their contributions to translation and culture-adaptation of the scale. We also want to thank all the men with prostate cancer who participated in this study. The work was supported by Medical and Health Research project of Zhejiang province (2014ZDA009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, 79 Qingchun Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310003, China

    Qingmei Huang, Ping Jiang, Zijun Zhang, Jie Luo, Yun Dai, Li Zheng & Wei Wang

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  1. Qingmei Huang
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  2. Ping Jiang
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Correspondence to Wei Wang.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

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The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study, and written informed consents were obtained from all the participants.

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Huang, Q., Jiang, P., Zhang, Z. et al. Assessing cancer-specific anxiety in Chinese men with prostate cancer: psychometric evaluation of the Chinese version of the Memorial Anxiety Scale for Prostate Cancer (MAX-PC). Support Care Cancer 25, 3683–3690 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-017-3794-5

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