Table 1.

Descriptive statistics for the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Score (HADS), and correlation with quality of life (QoL) for 1444 Australian cancer patients and survivors

Item number	Item content	Number missing	% missing	Meana	Standard deviation	Correlation with totalb	Correlation with QoLc
Anxiety subscale (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.87)				5.66	4.20		−0.687
1	I feel tense or wound up	26	1.8	0.87	0.77	0.69
3	I get a sort of frightened feeling, as if something awful is about to happen	26	1.8	0.86	0.83	0.70
5	Worrying thoughts go through my head	25	1.7	1.00		0.68
7	I can sit at ease and feel relaxed	24	1.7	0.92	0.77	0.62
9	I get a frightened feeling like butterflies in the stomach	31	2.1	0.56	0.73	0.60
11	I feel restless as if I have to be on the move	28	1.9	0.87	0.84	0.50
13	I get sudden feelings of panic	28	1.9	0.44	0.72	0.73
Depression subscale (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.84)				5.07	4.11		−0.767
2	I still enjoy things I used to enjoy	24	1.7	0.74	0.83	0.58
4	I can laugh and see the funny side of things	28	1.9	0.51	0.76	0.64
6	I feel cheerful	24	1.7	0.65	0.75	0.68
8	I feel as if I am slowed down	28	1.9	1.36	0.92	0.50
10	I have lost interest in my appearance	29	2.0	0.75	0.98	0.51
12	I look forward with enjoyment to things	28	1.9	0.66	0.84	0.71
14	I can enjoy a good book or radio or TV program	28	1.9	0.44	0.72	0.49
Distress total score (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.90)				10.74	7.60		−0.796

Higher values indicate higher anxiety or depression

^aPossible range of each item is 0–3; range for subscales is 0–21; range for distress is 0–42

^bCorrelation of item with total of remaining items in subscale

^cQoL is measured by the FACT-G