ORIGINAL ARTICLE Activities of daily living in Greek cancer patients treated in a palliative care unit Kyriaki Mystakidou & Eleni Tsilika & Efi Parpa & Efi Mitropoulou & Irene Panagiotou & Antonis Galanos & Athanasios Gouliamos Received: 27 October 2011 / Accepted: 9 May 2012 / Published online: 29 May 2012 # Springer-Verlag 2012 Abstract Goals of work To assess the psychometric properties of the Activities of Daily Living (ADL) scale on a Greek sample of advanced cancer patients. Patients and methods The scale was translated with the forward-backward procedure to Greek. The ADL scale was administered to 136 advanced cancer patients. It was administered twice, with a 3-day interval, to 40 (of the 136) eligible patients with advanced cancer to assess the scale's stability. For the assessment of treatment effect, the index was administered to 90 (of the 136) patients 15 days later. Together with the ADL scale, the patients also completed the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) scale. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out using the AMOS 7.0 analysis. The reliability was assessed by the internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha co-efficients), and test/retest (Spearman's r value) of the instrument. Validity was assessed with construct validity using the IADL scale, treatment-effect, known groups, and convergent validity. Main results The homogeneity of the scale proved to be satisfactory (cronbach alpha 0 0.88). Overall test–retest reli- ability was satisfactory. Construct validity has shown satis- factory correlations with IADL p <0.0005. Convergent validity and treatment effect were satisfactory at p <0.0005 and p <0.05, respectively. Known groups validity detected differences according to patient's performance status (p < 0.0005). Conclusions The results suggest that the Greek version of ADL administered in cancer patients treated in a palliative care unit is a reliable and valid clinical instrument. Keywords Activities of daily living . IADL . Cancer . Palliative care Introduction Progressive aging of population and an increasing incidence of cancer in elderly people are epidemiological and clinical challenges [71]. The rapid growth of the oldest-old popula- tion and increases in exceptional longevity have led to an ongoing debate whether longer lives are accompanied by longer active lives that are free from disability [29]. Appro- priate assessment of geriatric cancer patients thus is becom- ing increasingly important [26]. Mortality and morbidity in addition to disability and loss of functioning are the four main health dimensions used in K. Mystakidou (*) : E. Tsilika : E. Parpa : I. Panagiotou : A. Galanos (*) Pain Relief and Palliative Care Unit, Department of Radiology, Areteion Hospital, School of Medicine, University of Athens, 27 Korinthias St., 115 26 Athens, Greece e-mail: mistakidou@yahoo.com e-mail: galanostat@yahoo.gr E. Tsilika e-mail: eleni.tsilika@gmail.com E. Parpa e-mail: eparp@yahoo.gr I. Panagiotou e-mail: irpanagiotou@yahoo.com E. Mitropoulou Municipality of Athens Medical Center, Athens, Greece e-mail: efi299@hotmail.com A. Gouliamos Radiology Department, Areteion Hospital, School of Medicine, University of Athens, Vas. Sofias 76, 115 28 Athens, Greece e-mail: agouliam@med.uoa.gr Support Care Cancer (2013) 21:97–105 DOI 10.1007/s00520-012-1497-5