Psychometric Properties of the Italian Version of the Short-Form Supportive Care Needs Survey Questionnaire (SCNS-SF34-It): A Multicenter Validation Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Well-written article, with clear language and easy to understand even for readers who are not familiar with the subject. I only have a few minor comments to make, which I believe are easy to solve.

·       1. In the abstract, an acronym after Edmond Symptom Assessment System was missing (ESAS). This was used after in the abstract.

·      2. Please verify the median (IQR) of the sexuality domain in Table 3.

·         3. In page 7, in the description of Table 3, the authors describe “The lowest scores ranged from 9.5% (“Psychological need”) to 49.2% (“Sexuality”) while the highest from 0.1 to 1.3”. Assuming that 0.1 and 1.3 correspond to percentages, please add “%” to the text, in order to make the description of the highest score consistent with the lowest.

4. In table 4, the p-value for the correlation of appetite domain (from the ESAS scale) and the Patient care and support domain (from the SCNS-SF34-It scale) was presented with four decimal points.

5. Please clarify in the methods sections or in the table 1 footnotes how you classify patients according to “setting”. Also, what “induction” means? Which patients were classified as survivors? In addition, and assuming this information was collected from medical records, why do you have 173 patients with missing data in this variable?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a well-written report on the reliability and validity of the Italian version of SCNS-SF34.

Since the population included in the melanoma sub-cohort study was more than 200 patients with melanoma, is this not far from the prevalence of the cancer type in the general population in Italy? Does it affect the generalizability?

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors This paper deals with psychometric properties of Italian version of SCNS-SF34. If the reliability and validity of the SCNS-SF are verified, it would be useful in understanding the needs of cancer patients in Italy. However, this verification method cannot be said to be correct. Major comments 1.    Convergent validity is considered to be verified by correlation with similar and different scale. Needs and symptoms are different, and wouldn't it be better to　ESAS them when proving discriminant validity? 2.    Can we prove discriminant validity by using different samples within the same scale? Minor comment

1.    Table 2 is difficult to read. I think it would be easier to see if it was created according to factor loading.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors This study aimed to evaluate psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Short-Form Supportive Care Needs Survey Questionnaire (SCNS-SF34) in a cancer population. The evaluated psychometric properties were: the 5-domain structure, the internal consistency, the convergent validity with Edmond Symptom Assessment System questionnaire, discriminant validity and test-retest reliability. The SCNS-SF34-It proved to be a reliable instrument for use in clinical practice for evaluating unmet needs in the Italian population of cancer patients.  I really appreciate the work done by the authors. I have some minor questions and suggestions: 1. The Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) questionnaire was used to  assess the convergent validity of the SCNS-SF34 questionnaire, why? 2. "Dimensions and items" was presented badly in Table 2, please modify. 3. I suggest replacing Table 4 with a heat map. 4. Why are the age groups in Tables 1 and 5 different？  

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I do not think that the validity evaluation has been done correctly, so I will reject this.

Author Response

22^nd January, 2024

Professor Richard Gray

Editor-in-Chief, Nursing Reports

Dear Prof. Gray,

RE: nursrep-2748970R1

“Psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Short-Form Supportive Care Needs Survey Questionnaire (SCNS-SF34-It): a validation study” by Anita Zeneli et al.

We are returning the above paper, revised on the basis of the reviewer #3 remarks, for further evaluation. We enclose a point-by-point reply to all the comments made and have marked the changes to the text in red and yellow.

Looking forward to hearing from you, we remain,

Yours sincerely,

Emanuela Scarpi, M.Stat

Corresponding Author

IRCCS Istituto Romagnolo per lo Studio dei Tumori (IRST) "Dino Amadori”

Via Piero Maroncelli 40, 47014 Meldola, Italy

Tel +39 0543 739262, Fax +39 0543 739290, e-mail [email protected]

Reviewer #3, round 2

I do not think that the validity evaluation has been done correctly, so I will reject this.

Reply:

With reference to the last comment, not having fully understood what the reviewer meant, we have now added further data (Table 2 and commented it at "3.3 Factor analysis" results and Table 5).

We would like to highlight that the study was designed, conducted and analyzed according to the methodology reported in Bhattacherjee, Anol ["Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices" (2012). Textbooks Collection. 3. https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/oa_textbooks/3]. Previous studies validating the same tool in other languages have been designed according to these methods which makes our results comparable with them.

It is our hope that we have now answered to the reviewer's comment. Whether it is not the case, we kindly ask to better explain what she/he meant.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf