Heritage, health and well-being: assessing the impact of a heritage focused intervention on health and well-being

Do museums and other heritage organisations have something to offer the healthcare sector? Do they have a role in improving health and well-being? Increasingly both heritage and healthcare organisations think they do. A broader definition of health including well-being and an emphasis on preventative medicine and multi-agency approaches to care within the UK’s National Health Service has facilitated the work of museums and galleries in this area. However, there are still few specific heritage programmes in healthcare organisations and very little evaluation of these. Here we present key findings from a qualitative evaluation of a heritage focused intervention carried out in a range of healthcare settings. The aim of the research project was to assess the impact on well-being of taking museum objects into hospitals and healthcare contexts

Psychometric validation of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer–Quality of Life Questionnaire Sexual Health (EORTC QLQ-SH22)

BACKGROUND: The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Group developed a questionnaire to assess sexual health in patients with cancer and cancer survivors. This study evaluates the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. METHODS: The 22-item EORTC sexual health questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-SH22) was administered with the EORTC QLQ-C30 to 444 patients with cancer. The hypothesised scale structure, reliability and validity were evaluated through standardised psychometric procedures. RESULTS: The cross-cultural field study showed that the majority of patients (94.7%) were able to complete the QLQ-SH22 in less than 20 min; 89% of the study participants did not need any help to fill in the questionnaire. Multi-item multi-trait scaling analysis confirmed the hypothesised scale structure with two multi-item scales (sexual satisfaction, sexual pain) and 11 single items (including five conditional items and four gender-specific items). The internal consistency yielded acceptable Cronbach's alpha coefficients (.90 for the sexual satisfaction scale, .80 for the sexual pain scale). The test-retest correlations (Pearson's r) ranged from .70 to .93 except for the scale communication with professionals (.67) and male body image (.69). The QLQ-SH22 discriminates well between subgroups of patients differing in terms of their performance and treatment status. CONCLUSION: The study supports the reliability, the content and construct validity of the QLQ-SH22. The newly developed questionnaire is clinically applicable to assess sexual health of patients with cancer at different treatment stages and during survivorship for clinical trials and for clinical practice

Skills Bootcamps process evaluation: Evaluation Report

Department for Educatio

Sensitivity to change of the EORTC quality of life module measuring cancer related fatigue (EORTC QlQ-Fa12): results from the international psychometric validation

OBJECTIVE: The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Group (EORTC QLG) has developed a multidimensional instrument measuring cancer related fatigue, the EORTC QLQ-FA12. The analysis of sensitivity to change is an essential part of psychometric validation. With this study, we investigated the EORTC QLQ-FA12's sensitivity to change. METHODS: The methodology follows the EORTC guidelines of EORTC QLG for phase IV validation of modules. We included cancer patients undergoing curative and palliative treatment at t1 and followed them up prospectively over the course of their treatment (t2) and four weeks after completion of treatment (t3). Data were collected prospectively at 17 sites in eleven countries. Sensitivity to change was investigated using analysis of variance (ANOVA). RESULTS: A total sample of 533 patients was enrolled with various tumour types, different stages of cancer, and receiving either curative treatment (n=311) or palliative treatment (n=222). Over time all fatigue scores were significantly higher in the palliative treatment group compared with the curative group (p < .001). Physical fatigue increased with medium effect size over the course of treatment in the curative group [SRM(t1,t2) = 0.44]. After treatment physical [SRM(t2,t3) = 0.39], emotional [SRM(t2,t3)= 0.28] and cognitive fatigue [SRM(t2,t3) = 0.22] declined significantly in the curative group. In the palliative group emotional [SRM(t2,t3) = 0.18] as well as cognitive [SRM(t2,t3) = 0.26] fatigue increases significantly. CONCLUSIONS: The EORTC-QLQ-FA12 proved to identify clinically significant changes in fatigue in the course of curative and palliative cancer treatment