Validation of the Cancer Care Monitor Items for Physical Symptoms and Treatment Side Effects Using Expert Oncology Nurse Evaluation

The Cancer Care Monitor (CCM) is a tablet computer-based multidimensional measure of symptom burden and quality of life. This study examined individual item validity for 42 items measuring general physical symptoms and treatment side effects. Patients (40 females and 20 males) completed the CCM and a blinded nurse interview. In general, patient self-reported symptoms on the CCM corresponded well to nurse-verified evaluations. There was excellent agreement between the patient-reported CCM items and nurses' ratings on whether the symptom was present or absent and on the severity of a given symptom. Additionally, the results suggested that the majority of items had high sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and Youden's Index score. Taken together, the results suggest that the CCM can provide an efficient method for collecting information about symptom presence and symptom burden at the point of care.