The overall purpose of this project is to develop methods for assessing quality of life (QOL) that will provide comparable data in cancer patients from culturally diverse populations including African Americans and Hispanic Americans, and varying in levels of literacy and socioeconomic status. During the first phase, appropriate QOL measures for cancer patients from these special populations will be developed by adapting existing QOL measures, developing new items and scales as necessary, translating measures into Spanish, and examining and modifying measures to promote understandability across cultural as well as educational and socioeconomic barriers. These measures will be rated and reviewed by advisory boards comprised of people knowledgeable about the culture and language of the special population groups in the Washington-Baltimore SMSA in terms of their relevance and sensitivity to differences of language and dialect, customs, beliefs and traditions. During the second phase the QOL scales will be administered by trained interviewers from the African American and Hispanic population groups to people from these groups who are undergoing diagnosis and treatment for cancer. The scales will be examined for maintenance of psychometric properties across these minority groups and across subgroups varying in levels of literacy and socio- economic status. During the third phase, the refined QOL measures will examined for psychometric efficacy, efficiency and construct validity in repeated administrations to panels of cancer patients from the special populations groups of concern who are undergoing diagnosis, treatment and supportive care.
