Measuring Development of Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Patients: An Integrative Review of Available Instruments.

Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) 15-39 years old face unique challenges during cancer treatment as developmental and social needs are often disrupted to achieve cure. Developmentally appropriate supportive care for AYAs across the cancer trajectory is needed. The purpose of this review is to identify and describe instruments that measure AYA development across physical, psychological, and social domains, commenting on the instruments' psychometric properties and usefulness in clinical practice and research. A computerized literature search published in English from 1950 to January of 2017 was conducted utilizing the following databases: Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY), Health and Psychosocial Instruments, PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PsycINFO, and Google Scholar. The following instruments were identified and described: the Child Health and Illness Profile-Adolescent Edition (CHIP-AE); the Course of Life Questionnaire; the Developmental Task Questionnaire (DTQ); the Impact of Cancer scale for childhood survivors and AYAs (IOC-CS and IOC-AYA); the McCleery Scale of Adolescent Development (MSAD); and the Minneapolis-Manchester Quality of Life Adolescent and Young Adult Form (MMQL-AF and MMQL-YA). Among currently available instruments, the IOC-AYA and MMQL-AF were relevant to AYAs undergoing or completing cancer therapy. However, validation for the IOC-AYA occurred in cancer survivors off treatment so further psychometric evaluation is needed in AYAs currently undergoing cancer treatment. Furthermore, the MMQL-AF has been validated for use during active cancer treatment, but is limited to adolescents 13-20 years. Further research may be needed to create or refine instruments measuring the developmental impact in AYAs, particularly emerging adults undergoing active cancer treatment.