Psychological Impact of Cancer Scale
The Psychological Impact of Cancer (PIC) Scale is a brief 12-item measure developed to assess core dimensions of psychological response to cancer diagnosis and treatment (Hulbert-Williams et al., 2019). The scale was derived from the Mini-MAC using systematic item-reduction procedures and confirmatory factor analysis, resulting in a concise four-factor structure: cognitive distress, emotional distress, cognitive avoidance, and fighting spirit. The aim was to create a measure that retained conceptual clarity and acceptable psychometric performance while reducing participant burden in both clinical and research settings.
Psychometric testing across UK and Australian cancer survivors demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, confirmatory factor structure, and comparable convergent validity relative to longer versions of the Mini-MAC. Given its brevity and ease of interpretation, the PIC may be particularly useful in clinical contexts where screening for psychological distress needs to be efficient without sacrificing theoretical coherence.
The PIC Scale is not available under a Creative Commons licence, and the items cannot be distributed freely online. The full item set is published within the original journal article. Readers with institutional or academic library access can obtain the measure directly via the published paper. If you do not have access and would like a copy of the article for legitimate academic or clinical use, you are welcome to request it via the contact form on my website:
APA reference:
Hulbert-Williams, N. J., Hulbert-Williams, L., Whelen, L., & Mulcare, H. (2019). The Psychological Impact of Cancer (PIC) Scale: Development and comparative psychometric testing against the Mini-MAC Scale in UK and Australian cancer survivors. Journal of Psychosocial Oncology Research and Practice, 1(2), e8. https://doi.org/10.1097/OR9.0000000000000008