Brief assessment of priority symptoms in hormone XXXX : the FACT Advanced Prostate Symptom Index (FAPSI).

@entity1 @entity263 @entity353 @entity5 @entity1295 @entity158
BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to construct and validate a brief, clinically-relevant symptom index for @entity263 . METHODS: Questions were extracted from a commonly-used multi-dimensional @entity5 quality of life instrument with prostate-specific items, the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Prostate (FACT-P). Surveys of disease-related symptoms were presented to an international sample of 44 expert physicians. Each expert narrowed the list to no more than five of the most important symptoms or concerns to monitor when assessing the value of treatment for @entity263 . Symptoms/concerns endorsed at a frequency greater than chance probability (17%) were retained for the symptom index and called the FACT Advanced Prostate Symptom Index-8 (FAPSI-8): @entity158 (three items), @entity1295 , @entity353 , urinary difficulties (two items), and concern about the condition becoming worse. The FAPSI-8 was validated using data from a clinical trial of 288 @entity1 being treated for hormone @entity263 . RESULTS: The FAPSI-8 showed good internal consistency (r = 0.67-0.80); association with existing FACT scales (e.g., FACT-P, Physical Well-being, Functional Well-being; r = 0.44-0.85, p <.0001), responsiveness to clinical change (Guyatt's Responsiveness statistic = 1.29), and ability to differentiate @entity1 by performance status (p <.0001). A six-item alternate version of the FAPSI was also evaluated with comparable results. CONCLUSIONS: This project produced a reliable and valid list of the eight most important clinician-rated targets of drug therapy for @entity263 . These questions perform comparably to the longer derivative questionnaire. Examination of @entity1 agreement with this priority list and the extent to which changes in these 8 targets are related to meaningful clinical benefit to the @entity1 are important next steps for future research.
