ANALYSIS OF THE DISTRESS THERMOMETER’S PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES AND APPLICABILITY TO SUBGROUPS

Abstract

The current study investigates the psychometric properties of the Distress Thermometer (DT) and its associated problem list, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s recommended screening tool for distress among cancer survivors. The DT is a self-report tool that includes an overall distress rating (0-10) over the past week and a problem list where a patient can indicate whether or not they have been experiencing difficulties within certain categories over the past week (Fulcher & Gosselin-Acomb, 2007; Roth et al., 1998). This study analyzed DTs completed by 1,205 cancer survivors during their outpatient cancer treatment. Overall, the DT’s structure was appropriate for the study population as a whole. In addition, the DT category of Emotional Problems was the only domain that significantly predicted whether someone was at risk for high distress. When the existing DT structure was analyzed in different patient subgroups (i.e., males, females, racial minorities) the structure was not equally applicable to all of the subgroups. Specifically, the existing DT was more applicable for males and whites compared to females and minorities. Further, the factor structures between males versus females and minorities versus whites were too disparate for comparisons. However, the limited sample size of patient subpopulations makes interpretation of these results difficult. Future studies should investigate the DT and problem list within larger samples of these subpopulations in an effort to identify areas where they differ with respect to the applicability of the DT and problem list.