Validation of the Persian Version of the Death and Dying Distress Scale in patients with advanced cancer

Death anxiety is commonly experienced by individuals with advanced cancer who have a limited life expectancy. The Death and Dying Distress Scale (DADDS) is a validated measure that was created to capture this experience; but no Persian version is available to date. We conducted a cross-sectional study to explore the psychometric properties of a Pearsion version DADDS (DADDS) in patients with advanced cancer.۲۰۰ patients with advanced cancer were recruited from the Imam Khomeini, Shohada Tajrish and Baqiyatallah hospitals. Measures administered included: DADDS-C, Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-۹), and General Anxiety Disorder-۷(GAD-۷). McDonald's Omega, Cronbach's alpha, Confirmatory Factor Analysis were used to test DADDS reliability and validity.The Persian version of DADDS has good reliability (internal consistency between ۰.۶۷ and ۰.۹۱ and test-retest reliability between ۰.۷۳ and ۰.۸۹) and appropriate convergent validity through correlation with PHQ-۹ and GAD-۷ in the range was between (۰.۴۷ to ۰.۵۱). Also, according to construct validity, SEM showed that the two-factor model is the best fitting model for DADDS in Persian language.The DADDS is a valid measure of death anxiety in Iranian patients with advanced cancer. It may provide useful information in the assessment and treatment of distress in patients near the end of life.

Keywords:

advanced cancer , confirmatory factor analysis , Death and Dying Distress Scale , psychometric validation. , سرطان پیشرفته , تحلیل عاملی تاییدی , ویژگی های روان سنجی , نسخه فارسی مقیاس پریشانی مرگ و مردن