Reliability and validity test of VES-13 and analysis of influencing factors for the vulnerable condition of patients with advanced castration-resistant prostate cancer

Objectives: To study the relationship between the reliability and validity of VES-13 and the influencing factors of the vulnerable condition of patients with advanced castration-resistant prostate cancer, so as to provide a reference for the health management and nursing of elderly inpatients.

Methods: By means of convenience sampling, 150 vulnerable patients with advanced castration-resistant prostate cancer who were admitted to the Department of Oncology of the Affiliated Hospital of Hebei University from April 2019 to March 2020 were selected. General data questionnaire, simple mental state checklist, anxiety self-assessment scale, and the vulnerable elders 13 survey (VES-13) were used in this study. The reliability and validity were tested by SPSS 20.0.

Results: For this group of patients, VES-13 Cronbach’s α was 0.832, living function was 0.778, body function was 0.846, and the correlation coefficient between items was between 0.401 and 0.823 (P<0.01); the retest reliability was 0.831 (P<0.05), and the correlation coefficient was0.504 (P<0.05). The average time to fill in each scale was 4.53±1.32 Minutes, and general indicators such as economic status and education level were significantly correlated with vulnerability. The clinical indicators of prostate-specific antigen levels, multiple bone metastases, and bone pain were significantly correlated with vulnerability.

Conclusion: VES-13 scale had high level of reliability and operability, and was straight forward to understand and use; it can be used as an effective tool for the assessment of vulnerability in patients with advanced prostate cancer. The vulnerability of patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer showed significant correlation with economic status, education level, prostate-specific antigen level, multiple bone metastases, bone pain and other indicators. Nursing staff should pay close attention to the relevant factors of inpatients and give targeted advance intervention measures to facilitate rapid recovery of elderly inpatients.