ABSTRACT
Objective:To establish a questionnaire to assess symptom of embolization syndrome after transcatheter hepatic arterial chemoembolization (TACE) in patients with liver cancer, so as to provide a tool of assessing and managing symptom management after TACE.Methods:From March 2020 to June 2021, through literature review, qualitative interview and Delphi expert consultation, the first draft of symptom assessment questionnaire for TACE post-operative embolism syndrome was prepared. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were tested in 200 patients with liver cancer treated by TACE in department of Liver Oncology, Zhongshan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University.Results:According to the feedback from Delphi expert consultation a draft questionnaire with 9 items of physiological symptoms and 6 items of psychological and social symptoms was formed. Item analysis showed that each item in the questionnaire had a good degree of differentiation. There was significant correlation between each item and the total score of the questionnaire. Three factors were extracted by exploratory factor analysis, naming psychosocial symptom group as factor 1, somatic discomfort symptom group as factor 2 and gastrointestinal reaction symptom group as factor 3, and the cumulative variance contribution rate was 62.592%. Spearman correlation coefficient between this questionnaire and the Anderson Symptom Assessment Scale was 0.855( P<0.05). The Cronbach α of the total questionnaire was 0.898, and. The Cronbach α of the three factors were 0.885, 0.771 and 0.870 respectively. Conclusions:The symptom assessment questionnaire of embolization syndrome after TACE in liver cancer patients prepared in this study has good reliability and validity, which can provide an evaluation basis for the symptom management of TACE.