Preliminary Validation of the Cancer Worry Scale in Pediatric Survivors of Childhood Cancer
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Relatively little is known about the fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) experienced by youth. Contributing to this challenge is the scarcity of validated tools available to measure FCR experienced by children and adolescents under age 18. Our aim was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Cancer Worry Scale (CWS) in a pediatric sample. PROCEDURE: Participants (n = 70), 8-17 years of age, completed the CWS. We evaluated psychometric properties of both the CWS-6 and CWS-8 and conducted exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) for each to evaluate the number of factors, variance explained, and item fit. Correlations between the CWS and IUSC-12, PROMIS Anxiety-8a, PROMIS Depression-8a, and PedsQL were assessed for evidence of convergent and divergent validity. RESULTS: Individual CWS items had acceptable psychometric characteristics, except for Item 3, which performed poorly across analyses. Both CWS versions demonstrated floor effects, with no participants endorsing the highest scores. Internal consistency reliability was good for both the CWS-6 (α = 0.91) and CWS-8 (α = 0.92). EFA produced a single factor solution for both CWS versions, accounting for 62%-65% of total variance. Both CWS versions were predictably correlated with measures indicating convergent (Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale for Children-12, PROMIS Anxiety-8a, PROMIS Depression-8a; r = 0.464-0.535, p < 0.001) and divergent validity (PedsQL; r = -0.285 to -0.324, p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Preliminary results are consistent with the extant literature and suggest the CWS may be used effectively with pediatric samples. Continued exploration of FCR experienced by pediatric survivors is needed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".