Purpose

The aim of this study was to translate the health-related quality-of-life questionnaire EORTC QLQ-LMC21 into Swedish and to test its clinical and psychometric reliability and validity in patients with liver metastases from colorectal cancer (CRC) undergoing surgical treatment.

Methods

The Swedish versions of the EORTC QLQ-C30 and EORTC QLQ-LMC21 were administered to 250 patients with liver metastases from CRC in four Swedish hospitals before and 3 months after surgical treatment. Psychometric validation of the questionnaire´s structure, reliability, and convergent and divergent validity was performed.

Results

Data from 242 (97%) patients were suitable for analysis. The QLQ-LMC21 was found to be sensitive to changes over time. Cronbach´s alpha coefficient indicated good internal consistency, ranging from 0.84 to 0.89. Test–retest reliability was evaluated in 120 patients (49%), and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) indicated good reproducibility, ranging from 0.67 to 0.93. Convergent and discriminant validity were demonstrated adequately in the multitrait scaling analysis. There were weak correlations between the QLQ-C30 and QLQ-LMC21, which confirms that the health problems addressed by the QLQ-LMC21 are different from those addressed by the QLQ-C30.

Conclusions

The Swedish version of the EORTC QLQ-LMC21 proved to be a valid and reliable questionnaire to use in conjunction with the EORTC QLQ-C30.