Even though unresolved matters left behind are known to influence the mental and emotional health of families grieving the loss of a cancer patient, Japan still has no dedicated instrument for measuring such issues in these families. The current study set out to create a new scale for assessing unfinished business in families of terminally ill cancer patients and to thoroughly investigate its validity and reliability within the Japanese context. In August 2020, researchers conducted a cross-sectional web-based survey of bereaved families of cancer patients. The questionnaire package included the newly constructed Unfinished Business Scale for Families, the Unfinished Business in Bereavement Scale (UBBS), the Brief Grief Questionnaire (BGQ), and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). A follow-up retest was administered 2 weeks later.
Answers provided by 206 bereaved families underwent factor analysis. The procedure yielded three distinct subscales, each comprising 10 items: Talk, Action, and Message. The overall Cronbach’s α coefficient for the Unfinished Business Scale for Families reached 0.96, and the test–retest reliability measured by the intraclass correlation coefficient stood at 0.74. Scores on the new scale showed a significant moderate correlation with the UBBS (r = 0.46), as well as moderate correlations with the BGQ (r = 0.40) and the PHQ-9 (r = 0.33). Every P-value was < 0.001. These outcomes demonstrate that the Unfinished Business Scale for Families serves as an effective instrument for evaluating unfinished business among families who have lost a terminally ill cancer patient. Going forward, it will be important to apply this scale in larger surveys of bereaved families to properly identify unfinished business. Doing so should allow healthcare professionals to offer more targeted and sufficient assistance to those families still struggling with unresolved issues.
