Food Avoidance Beliefs and Behaviors Among Chinese Cancer Patients: Validation of a New Measurement Tool.

OBJECTIVE: Restrictive food avoidance behavior among Chinese cancer patients is common. Yet, to the authors' knowledge, no study has investigated factors associated with such behavior. This study attempted to validate a new measurement tool, the Cancer Patients Food Avoidance Behaviors Scale (CPFAB), that assessed cancer patients' belief regarding 5 perceived benefits of practicing food avoidance, and to test its applicability.

DESIGN: Cross-sectional face-to-face interviews.

SETTING: Two outpatient oncology clinics in 2 different districts of Hong Kong.

PARTICIPANTS: A total of 245 patients with nasopharyngeal and colorectal cancer.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Assessment of psychometric properties of the CPFAB.

ANALYSIS: Principal components method with oblique (Promax) rotations was performed to investigate the factor structure of the CPFAB.

RESULTS: Psychometric properties, which included test-retest intraclass correlations (mean = 0.72; SD = 0.12), Cronbach α (.88-.94), floor (0.4% to 5.7%) and ceiling (0% to 7.3%) effects, and item-subscale (0.67-0.79) and subscale-total (0.68-0.89) correlations, were satisfactory.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The CPFAB, a new instrument used to assess food avoidance, was developed and validated. It showed satisfactory psychometric properties and can be used to evaluate interventions that seek to modify food avoidance attitudes among cancer patients.