A Systematic Review of Universal Supportive Care Needs Scale for Cancer Patients Based on COSMIN Guidelines

BackgroundThere are many scales used to assess the universal supportive care needs for cancer patients at home and abroad, but there is a lack of standardized evaluation research on the quality of such scales and horizontal comparison research between different scales. Few researchers have systematically integrated and evaluated the measurement characteristics of such scales.ObjectiveTo evaluate the quality of psychometric properties and methodological quality of the Chinese version of the universal supportive care needs scale for cancer patients.MethodsIn April 2021, CNKI, Wanfang Data knowledge service platform, Whipple Journal full-text database, Chinese Biomedical Literature database, PubMed, EmBase, Web of Science and CINAHL Complete Database were retrieved to collect the Chinese version of the universal supportive care needs scale for cancer patients from the time of database establishment to March 30, 2021. After 2 researchers independently screened the literature and extracted the data, the guidelines were systematically reviewed using the selection criteria for health measurement tools. Based on the evaluation of the measurement characteristics of the scale and the methodological quality of the research, the level of evidence for the measurement characteristics of the Chinese version of the supportive care needs assessment scale for cancer patients were comprehensively evaluated. All available studies were qualitatively summarised to formulate recommendations.ResultsA total of 15 studies were included, involving 8 Chinese version of the supportive care needs assessment scale for cancer patients〔the 34-item Short Form Supportive Care Needs Survey (SCNS-SF34) , Supportive Care Needs Survey Screening Tool Chinese version (SCNS-ST9-C) , Comprehensive Needs Assessment Tool in Cancer for Patients (CNAT) , Career Needs Questionnaires-Short Form (CNQ-SF) , Chinese Cancer Survivor's Unmet Needs (CaSUN-C) , the Short-Form Survivor Unmet Needs Survey (SF-SUNS) , Advanced Cancer Patient Needs Questionnaire (ACNQ-41) , short version of Advanced Cancer Patient Needs Questionnaire (ACNQ-29) 〕. In terms of content validity, except that the overall rating of ACNQ-29 was evaluated as "not mentioned", the overall rating of the other seven scales was evaluated as "uncertain"; In terms of structural validity, except that the overall rating of CaSUN-C、SF-SUNS was rated as "sufficient", the overall rating of the other six scales was rated as "uncertain"; In terms of internal consistency, the overall rating of SCNS-SF34、CNQ-SF、CaSUN-C、SF-SUNS was assessed as "sufficient", the overall rating of ACNQ-41 was assessed as "insufficient", and the overall rating of the other three scales was assessed as "uncertain"; In terms of cross-cultural validity, only the overall rating of SCNS-SF34 was rated as "sufficient", and the overall rating of the other seven scales was rated as "not mentioned"; In terms of stability, except that the overall rating of ACNQ-41 was evaluated as "insufficient" and the overall rating of SCNS-ST9-C、ACNQ-29 was rated as "not mentioned", the overall rating of the other five scales was evaluated as "sufficient"; In terms of hypothesis testing, the overall rating of three scales was assessed as "not mentioned" (CNAT、CNQ-SF、ACNQ-29) and "uncertain" (CaSUN-C、SF-SUNS、ACNQ-41) , respectively, and the overall rating of SCNS-SF34、SCNS-ST9-C was assessed as "sufficient". The recommended rating of eight scales was grade B.ConclusionSCNS-SF34 is the scale with the most comprehensive measurement characteristics with good reliability and validity and high clinical application feasibility, which can be temporarily recommended for use, but it needs further testing.