Tomori, Christine2011-11-072011-11-0720112011-11-07http://hdl.handle.net/1828/3660The Patient-Centred Assessment of Symptoms and Activities (P-CASA) is a new idiographic, open-ended assessment that examines each individual patient’s symptoms within the context of his or her daily life. P-CASA asks patients for their most important activities, what interferes with these activities, and any coping strategies. This thesis presents the rationale and design of P-CASA and its first validation study. Sixty patients at the Pain and Symptom Management/Palliative Care Clinic of the BC Cancer Agency (Vancouver Island Centre) completed P-CASA and the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS), which is the current nomothetic assessment at the Clinic. The results demonstrated that P-CASA was not redundant with ESAS because it assessed (a) information about patients’ activities and coping strategies, which the ESAS does not; (b) all relevant cancer-related symptoms (not just pain or a fixed list); (c) co-occurring symptoms; (d) more specific details and different priorities about symptoms than in their ESAS.enSymptom AssessmentCancerPalliative CarePatient-Centred CarePsychometricsIdiographic AssessmentIdiographicAssessmentCancer CareAdvanced CancerOutpatientsPainSymptomsPain and Symptom ManagementThesisAvailable to the World Wide Web