Life Closure Scale (LCS)

The Life Closure Scale, or LCS, is an instrument developed for assessing psychological symptoms that occur during the dying process. The LCS focuses on two subscales – self-reconciled and self-reconstructing. Overall, the purpose for the instrument is to describe pain in terminal care groups and the cause for that pain.

The LCS test includes 45-items using a 5-point Likert scale responses.

Author

Marjorie Dobratz

Validity and Reliability

Based on independent studies, the content validity in LCS was calculated to be 0.83. The instrument had a 0.85 (self-reconciled) and 0.86 (self-reconstructing) internal consistency rating (alpha coefficient); in addition, it had a 0.75 correlation rating with the measure of quality of life and -.60 with other depression tools.

Administration, Analysis and Reporting

Intellectus Consulting can assist the student or professional researcher in administering the survey instrument, collecting the data, conducting the analyses and explaining the results.
For additional information on these services, click here.

References

Curtis, J. R., Patrick, D. L., Engelberg, R. A., Norris, K., Asp, C., & Byock, I. (2002). A measure of the quality of dying and death: Initial validation using after-death interviews with family members. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 24(1),17-31.

Dobratz, M. (1990). The Life Closure Scale: A measure of psychological adaptation in death and dying. Hospice Journal 6(3): 1-15.

Lohr, K. N., Aaronson, N. K., Alonso, J., Burnam, M. A., Patrick, D. L., Perrin, E. B., et al. (1996). Evaluating quality-of-life and health status instruments: Development of scientific review criteria. Clinical Therapeutics 18(5):979-92.

McMillan, S. C., & Weitzner, M. (1998). Quality of life in cancer patients: Use of a revised Hospice Index. Cancer Practice 6(5):282-8.