Outcome evaluation in health science : Cross-cultural equivalence in the quality of life scoring procedure

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In the field of health science, assessment of Health related Quality of Life (QOL) has been important and international comparison becoming critical issue. It is essential to conduct international bridging studies to clarify cross-cultural validity of QOL scales, evaluating each scale item equally in divergent contexts of cultures, demonstrating appropriate item-response correlations and construct validity of the scales.The aim of the study was to establish a standardized, cross-culturally equivalent, evaluation procedure for QOL assessment as an outcome measure in cancer clinical trials. For this major goal, the study aimed at to examine QOL scores and scoring methods of the questionnaires using the data from the Netherlands and Japan.First, a comparison of the scores and scoring methods of the EORTC QLQ-C30 and HRQOL-20 was conducted. Subjects were cancer patients (lung, breast, digestive, and prostate cancer) in the Netherlands and Japan. The data were summarized using summary statistics. The structures of the questionnaires were examined using factor analysis and correspondence analysis. The factors analyzed by factor analysis (PROMAX solution) were somewhat different from each other in the both countries. However, the results suggest that total score (QL2) as well as main subscales could be useful for cross-cultural comparison of the two countries.Second, in order to establish a standardized evaluation procedure for QOL assessment as an outcome measure in cancer clinical trials, cross-cultural validity between two different cultures in the QOL scoring procedure is examined for the patients in the Netherlands and Japan. The subjects were restricted to breast and lung cancer patients. The basic statistics were summarized. The detailed analysis will be subsequently conducted.