Experiences with a psychosocial screening instrument (S-FIRST) to identify the psychosocial support needs of parents of children suffering from cancer

Objectives
A large proportion of families with a child suffering from cancer are heavily burdened, both psychologically and socially functions, thus requiring treatment. Therefore, a systematic assessment of burden and needs is essential to identify clients with a high psychosocial burden and to allow for accurate decision making regarding indications for treatment. There is a great need for the development and validation of screening instruments in psychosocial counseling.
Methods
The receiver operating characteristic curve is a basic method to evaluate the discriminatory power of diagnostic tests. We computed sensitivity/specificity indices based on a sample of parents of pediatric cancer patients; the parents were screened with the S-FIRST and completed another standardized instrument with reliable indicators.
Results
We found significant area under the curve (AUC) values from 0.671 to 0.882, meaning that the S-FIRST screening instrument has small to medium discriminatory power.
Conclusion
Our results support the use of a screening instrument for case history analyses in psychosocial counseling to identify clients with a high psychosocial burden.