Examining perceptions of financial toxicity among cancer patients: The Financial Toxicity 16 Questionnaire

e19389 Background: Financial toxicity (FT) among cancer patients (CP) is multifactorial, arising from both disease-related and non- disease related factors, including socio-cultural, environmental, and psychological attributes. It derives both from costs related to assistance and borne on the patients and its caregivers, and reduction of income capacity also in this case borne on the patients and on the caregivers. Stress levels may escalate to significant proportions in some patient, to present with symptoms of anxiety especially during therapy administration periods. Methods: In order to highlight financial toxicity related to the diagnosis of metastatic pancreatic and lung cancer and to measure its evolution over time and any correlation with the prognosis, we developed a questionnaire called FT16 and we conducted a validation study on a sample of 31 patients. The design of the study involved the development and the psychometric assessment of a scale to measure the perceived sources of FT among CP. Following extensive literature review, a table of specification with the initial items was created to guide item construction for developing the scale. The items related to these FT were converted into an 16-item, multipoint questionnaire, resulting in the FT16. We also monitored quality of life of the patients, using the QlQ C-30 questionnaire, in the aim to capture correlation between FT onset and quality of life deterioration; clinical characteristics of the patients, response to therapy and outcome parameters also have been recorded in the aim to evaluate eventual correlation with FT. Results: The questionnaire was administered to 31 adult patients with lung and pancreatic metastatic cancer, both men and women, who were newly diagnosed and will undergo cancer treatment. Each of them has been informed about the research and written informed consent has been obtained. The internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) was 0.77 for the 16 items of the FT16. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) indicated that there were no significant differences in the mean FT16 score, between sexes, and age groups in the severity score. Conclusions: FT16 questionnaire seems to be an useful tool to capture FT onset in this poor-prognosis subset of patients; the analysis of the data recorded will continue to assess the capability of the FT16 to capture correlations with clinical characteristics at diagnosis and correlations with the prognosis.