Psychometric assessment of the Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (LSQ) and a comparison of a randomised sample of Swedish women and those suffering from breast cancer.

In a previous study, the Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (LSQ) was developed especially for women with breast cancer. The aim of the present study was to assess the psychometric properties of the LSQ in a randomized sample of Swedish women and to compare the perceived quality of life with that of women suffering from breast cancer. Another aim was to relate the result to educational background. A total of 257 women aged 20-80, randomly selected from the Swedish population register, answered the LSQ. The result was compared with that from 362 women aged 27-78 suffering from breast cancer. The construct validity was calculated by a principal component analysis, and the reliability by Cronbach alpha-coefficients. It was concluded that the LSQ has acceptable validity and reliability. The result also showed that the women with breast cancer rated their perceived quality of life higher than women in general with respect to the quality of personal relations and the quality of daily activities, but lower for physical symptoms. In the comparison with respect to educational background, women with university education rated their quality of life higher than women with other types of education. The testing of the LSQ will continue.