Investigating the response scale of the EORTC QLQ-C30 in German cancer patients and a population survey

Table 5 Study 1: changes in frequencies of chosen response option—cancer patients

	Optimized questionnaire (ziemlich)				Total
	1 not at all	2 a little	3 quite a bit (ziemlich)	4 very much	Total
Conventional questionnaire (mäßig)
1 not at all
n	2628	447	59	10	3144
%	83.6%	14.2%	1.9%	0.3%	100%
2 a little
n	433	950	177	22	1582
%	27.4%	60.1%	11.2%	1.4%	100%
3 quite a bit (mäßig)
n	83	392	438	57	970
%	8.6%	40.4%	45.2%	5.9%	100%
4 very much
n	15	58	178	202	453
%	3.3%	12.8%	39.3%	44.6%	100%
Total
n	3159	1847	852	291	6149
%	51.4%	30.0%	13.9%	4.7%	100%

The EORTC QLQ-C30 was presented in two versions. The conventional version used mäßig and the optimized version used ziemlich as response option 3 of the 4-point Likert scale
A total of N = 229 patients responded to both questionnaire versions and reported no changes in health as well as quality of life between both assessments. A total of N = 6149 responses to items 1–27 (missing responses n = 34 [0.5%]) were gained. Responses to each response option (1–4) are presented for the total sample. Bold numbers indicate no change in chosen response option between both questionnaire versions

ISSN: 1477-7525