Objectives: To assess the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer’s 30-item Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ-C30) for use with a multiracial study population of adults. Methods: Adults aged 50 and older were randomly selected from patients who made at least one visit to the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan in 1998. Results: African American (n = 255) and White (n = 234) subsamples were separately subjected to exploratory factor analysis; each yielded seven factors with eigenvalues above 1.00, accounting for approximately 65% of the variance, although the factorial structures of the subsamples were different. Discussion: Participants were not screened for cancer or other illnesses, which may contribute to differences between the known scoring model and these results. Researchers are advised to conduct separate analyses on racial/ethnic groups and to supplement the QLQ-C30 with additional items pertinent to the populations being studied and/or the conceptual/theoretical paradigm being tested.
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