Development of the Anxiety, Depression and Coping (ADAF) screening tool for emotional and coping problems in cancer patients

Objective Clinical guidelines recommend psychological screening in cancer patients. However, most scales cover many items and hamper detection. In addition, patients are generally referred from routine consultations. The specific objective of the present study was to develop and validate a tool, Anxiety, Depression, Coping (ADAF), to screen for anxiety and depression and assess coping in cancer patients. Methods Cross-sectional, multicenter study performed in the medical and radiotherapy-oncology services of five hospitals in Madrid and coordinated by the Medical Oncology Service of Hospital Clinico San Carlos (CEIC no19/265-E). To determine psychometric properties, the ADAF screening questionnaire ADAF was administered. ADAF includes five items (1 related to anxiety symptoms, 2 related to depressive symptoms, 1 for helplessness coping, and 1 for avoidance coping). Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and Mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer scale were used as the gold standards. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves constructed. A p value of A total of 186 patients completed the evaluation. The correlation coefficients were significant for all dimensions (anxiety, depression, helplessness coping, and avoidance coping) (p < 0.001). The statistical analysis of the ROC curves suggested that the cut-off point for screening was >2 points (3 in the case of depression), with a sensitivity and specificity between 62% and 90%, and an area under the curve above 0.8 for the first 4 items. Conclusions ADAF screening has adequate reliability and good sensitivity and specificity. This instrument is useful and can be easily applied to identify emotional and coping problems in cancer patients.

Automated summary

The study aimed to develop and validate a tool (ADAF) to screen for anxiety and depression, and assess coping in cancer patients. Results showed that ADAF screening has adequate reliability, sensitivity and specificity. This tool can be easily applied to identify emotional and coping problems in cancer patients.