Table 1.
Scale Development
| Factor Analysis for Identification of Hereditary Cancer | Factor Loadings |
|---|---|
| 1. Have you heard about testing for inherited susceptibility to cancer? | Dropped |
| Component 1: Confidence (Cronbach alpha=.87) (1=not at all to 5=extremely) | |
| 2. How knowledgeable would you rate yourself in identifying individuals with familial/hereditary cancer syndromes? | .85 |
| 3. How confident are you in your ability to identify individuals with familial/hereditary cancer syndromes? | .82 |
| 4. How comfortable would you rate yourself in identifying individuals with familial/hereditary cancer syndromes? | .88 |
| Component 2: Importance (Cronbach alpha=.83) | |
| 5. How important is it for you to identify individuals with familial/hereditary cancer syndromes? | .82 |
| 6. How effective is identifying individuals with familial/hereditary cancer syndromes in controlling cancer? | .67 |
| 7. To what extent do your patients need to be identified if they have a familial/hereditary cancer syndrome? | .87 |
| 8. To what extent do you feel it is your responsibility to identify individuals with familial/hereditary cancer syndromes? | .74 |
| Factor Analysis for Knowledge Items (Cronbach alpha=.91) | |
| 1. Approximately 10% of all cancers are hereditary. (True) | .74 |
| 2. If a woman is positive for a mutation associated with a hereditary cancer syndrome but does not develop cancer, her child may also have that mutation. (True) | .55 |
| 3. All cancer is the result of changes in genetic material. (True) | .90 |
| 4. In hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer families, colon cancer tends to occur at an older age in each subsequent generation. (False) | .68 |
| 5. Individuals with hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer tend to have earlier onset cancers than individuals with familial adenomatous polyposis. (False) | .64 |
| 6. If an individual has early-onset colon cancer but has no family history, s/he may have hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer. (True) | .62 |
| 7. Four items were relevant to hereditary breast-ovarian cancer, “Cancers with a strong inherited component can occur in both breasts. (True) | .90 |
| 8. If a woman inherits a BRCA1 or BRCA2 (hereditary breast-ovarian cancer) mutation from her father, she has the same chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer as if she had inherited the mutation from her mother. (True) | .91 |
| 9. Even if a woman has a mutation in BRCA1, she may not develop cancer. (True) | .86 |
| 10. A BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation is most likely suspected in a woman with breast cancer who has a family history of sarcoma and leukemia. (False) | .49 |