Валідація українського опитувальника «Оцінка готовності пацієнток до проходження скринінгу раку молочної залози та раку шийки матки»

Active military operations in Ukraine have significantly affected the healthcare system, in particular the process of cancer screening. The war has led to the destruction of infrastructure, a shortage of medical professionals and the reduced access to medical services, which has complicated the timely diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Women in wartime face a number of barriers, including financial, psychological, social and organizational, which leads to a decreased level of screening coverage for breast cancer (BC) and cervical cancer (CC). The objective: to develop and perform validation of the questionnaire “Assessment of Patient Readiness for Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening”, which allows to identify the factors that influence the readiness of Ukrainian women to undergo examinations. Materials and methods. The prototype for the questionnaire was the developed and validated questionnaire for assessing readiness for screening of the most common diseases in the practice of a family doctor, developed by Shushman et al. The validation process included several stages: – a cultural adaptation of the questionnaire, which included expert translation and linguistic coordination; – an assessment of content validity with the participation of independent experts with the calculation of conversion rate (CVR) and content validity index (CVI); – an assessment of external validity, which took into account the importance of the questions for representatives of the target group. Results. The questionnaire “Assessment of patient readiness for screening for breast and cervical cancer” was created based on an adapted version of the validated questionnaire. At the qualitative stage of internal validation of the questionnaire, 10 experts adapted it to the cultural and social norms, suggested additions and made adjustments. The quantitative stage involved expert assessment of the significance and clarity of each item, followed by calculation of CVR and CVI. An external validity was assessed by surveying 10 women aged 21–74 years, who rated the importance of the items on a 5-point scale, which allowed to calculate the impact assessment index for the items. After completing all validation stages, a final version of the questionnaire was created, ready for practical use. Conclusions. The questionnaire “Assessment of Patient Readiness for Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening” is a valid and reliable tool for scientific research to study women’s readiness to participate in BC and CC screening and identify barriers to this process.