Cancer Worry Scale for Healthy Populations and Oncology Survivors

The Russian-speaking scientific community lacks an easy-to-use tool for assessing cancer-related anxiety across various population groups. Domestic studies on this subject are scarce, and only a few articles have reported high levels of cancer anxiety. This article introduces a questionnaire for assessing the severity of carcinophobia across different demographics. The adapted Cancer Worry Scale consists of 11 items evaluated on a four-point Likert scale. The results are categorized into five levels of fear severity, ranging from zero cancer anxiety to mild, moderate, and severe carcinophobia. The sample comprised 342 respondents of both sexes and varying ages and education levels, including individuals with and without a history of cancer personally or among their relatives. The internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) was 0.865, which indicates good reliability. External validity was verified through correlations between the Cancer Worry Scale, the Whiteley Index (WI-8), and the Death Anxiety Scale (DAS). The resulting Spearman correlation coefficients were 0.591 and 0.327, respectively, indicating a statistically significant relationship. Based on a seven-day interval test-retest reliability check, the empirical value of the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was statistically insignificant at p > 0.05, thereby proving the stability of the scale over time. The share of respondents with severe cancer anxiety was 12.57%, and its severity significantly depended on the presence of a family histor y of cancer.