DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A PATIENT NEEDS ASSESSMENT-TOOL (PNAT) FOR ONCOLOGY CLINICIAN

The Patient Needs Assessment Tool (PNAT) is an interviewer-rated scale that may be completed through a simple structured interview and scree ns cancer patients for potential problems in physical and psycho-socia l functioning. The instrument provides separate scores for physical, p sychological, and social status, and can potentially clarify the types of interventions needed to address specific areas of dysfunction. Rel iability and validity was tested in two studies that used prescreened patient videotapes and other materials to assess the performance of th e PNAT in groups of oncology nurses, physicians, and social workers. T he data demonstrate that subscale scores for the physical, psychologic al, and social dimensions have good interrater reliability and interna l consistency (intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.71-0.97). Crit erion and construct validity was suggested through high correlations o f each subscale with the evaluation of expert raters (correlation coef ficients of 0.85-0.95) and with scores on validated patient-rated inst ruments appropriate to the functional area. These analyses suggest tha t the PNAT is a valid scale for the assessment of a range of functiona l disturbances in the cancer population.