Breast cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers among women. The experience of cancer has consequences across physical, social, and psychological domains. One resource for coping with cancer is self-efficacy. In Poland, we lack a tool to measure domain-specific self-efficacy, which is crucial for both research and practical applications. The study aimed to adapt and validate the Breast Cancer Survivor Self-Efficacy Scale (BCSES) originally developed by Prof. Victoria L. Champion, into Polish.
The BCSES was translated from English into Polish using the back-translation method. Subsequently, cognitive debriefs were conducted (N=7) and the final linguistic version was reconciled. A total of 71 hospitalized women diagnosed with breast cancer completed the following assessment: BCSES, GAD-7 (generalized anxiety), CES-D (depression), EORTC QLQ-C30 + QLQ-BR23 (quality of life), and MHC-SF (well-being).
The adapted scale demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = .713). Item-total correlations ranged from .020 to .632, with 2 items showing poor correlations, suggesting limited contribution to the overall scale consistency.
Pearson correlation analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between BCSES and psychosocial, health-related variables. Significant positive correlations were found between quality of life subscales (ranging from r = .248 to r = .463) and well-being (r = .637). Conversely, there were negative correlations revealed with psychological distress variables such as anxiety (r = –.495) and depression (r = –.254).
Preliminary validation suggests the Polish version of the BCSES shows acceptable psychometric properties. Further research is ongoing in order to refine the scale and confirm its utility.