Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of Sense of Coherence Scale in women with cervical cancer

Purpose The purpose of this study was to test the psychometric properties of a Chinese version of the Sense of Coherence Scale (C-SOC-13) in women with cervical cancer in Mainland China. Methods The C-SOC-13 and Health-related Quality of Life scale (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Cervix) were administered to 238 women with cervical cancer. Validity was assessed in terms of factor validity, predictive validity, divergent validity and stability, whereas reliability was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Results This study showed that in confirmatory factor analysis, the first-order interrelated three-factor model and second-order model were performed based on Antonovsky's theoretical structure of Sense of Coherence (SOC). Both models fitted the data satisfactorily when the largest modification index was released. The chi-square value/degrees of freedom was 2.120, the goodness-of-fit index was 0.919, the root mean square error of approximation was 0.069, and the comparative fit index was 0.911. The Pearson correlation coefficient between SOC and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Cervix was 0.611. Enter multiple regression with SOC as a dependent variable and medical and socio-economic variables as independent variables showed no statistically significant partial coefficient of any independent variable in regression equation except for age. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the scale was 0.824. Conclusion The factor validity, predictive validity and divergent validity of C-SOC-13 were reasonable, as well as the internal consistency. In general, C-SOC-13 showed to be suitable as an SOC measurement for women with cervical cancer in Mainland China. However, SOC may have a different meaning to Chinese people because of the philosophy and culture that shape the context of their lives. Generalizing the findings to other populations requires further psychometric evaluation of C-SOC-13. Further longitudinal studies are also needed to explore the stability. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.