Improving the Diagnostic Accuracy of the Distress Thermometer: A Potential Role for the Impact Thermometer.

Abstract

Screening for and management of distress in clinical practice is an important issue in the field of psycho-oncology. The Distress Thermometer (DT) is a common screening tool, but other methods recently have been proposed, with the aim of improving its diagnostic accuracy. To investigate the diagnostic accuracy of the DT alone and combined with the Impact Thermometer (IT), via the use of two possible combination methods. A heterogeneous sample of 385 adult patients with cancer completed the DT, the IT, and the Brief Symptom Inventory-18. The results of the DT were comparable with those found in previous studies, indicating that the DT was adequate for "screening" but had limited value for "case finding." The DT and the IT combined (summed or paired scores) showed minor differences in accuracy indexes compared with the DT alone. The results of this study suggest that the addition of the IT to the DT failed to improve its accuracy for identifying distress.