Abstract
Importance: Psychometrically sound instruments are needed to evaluate executive functioning in the population of people with cancer.
Objective: To develop and evaluate the reliability and validity of the Executive Function Performance Test–Enhanced (EFPT–E) in women after being treated for breast cancer.
Design: Cross-sectional.
Setting: University research laboratory.
Participants: Women treated for breast cancer who had cognitive impairment (n = 12) and community control participants (n = 13).
Outcomes and Measures: Evaluators (n = 8) independently scored a recorded administration of the EFPT–E to evaluate interrater reliability. An assessment battery, including the EFPT–E, was administered to evaluate the EFPT–E’s known-groups validity and concurrent validity.
Results: Excellent interrater reliability was observed for the EFPT–E total score and each subtask score (intraclass correlation coefficient = .90–.98). Moderate effect sizes were noted for the EFPT–E total score (Cohen’s d = 0.5) and the total number of cues (d = 0.4) between the breast cancer group and the control group, with the breast cancer group demonstrating poorer performance. A limited correlation was found between the EFPT–E and the other cognitive measures.
Conclusions and Relevance: The results support the EFPT–E’s interrater reliability and warrant continued investigation to further establish its reliability and validity.
What This Article Adds: Assessments are needed to quantify the impact of cognitive processes within functional tasks. The EFPT–E has been developed to assess the functional impact of mild cognitive impairment; initial testing with women with cancer showed excellent agreement between raters and promising results for validity.
