SEAL Substudy dataset on psychosocial consequences of liver screening

Background:

This data set comprises responses from n=487 patients who took part in a screening program for liver cirrhosis and fibrosis from January 2018 to February 2021 which was implemented as SEAL liver prevention program in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, Germany. The project was funded by the Innovation Fund of Federal Joint Committee of Germany, provided by Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (Funding ID: 01NVF16026).

The SEAL program is a prospective study that aimed at evaluating a newly introduced medical screening method for early diagnosis of liver cirrhosis or fibrosis. Within this screening, patients who visited collaborating clinics or doctor's offices for a general health check-up (Check-Up 35), underwent a multistep screening (step 1: blood sample test and determination of risk score, step 2: enhanced laboratory diagnostics and ultrasound, step 3: liver biopsy and enhanced diagnostics in a specialized clinic). Inclusion criteria for study participation were a minimum age of 35 years and no known previous cirrhosis of liver.

Data collection:

In August 2019, we contacted all participants who had been included in the SEAL program so far. A total of n=5,935 patients were contacted via postal mailing which included a self-administered paper questionnaire, a patient information and an informed consent form. In sum, n=487 processsable questionnaires were returned. The data set contains processed data, so that used instruments were transformed according to guidelines, where available. The data set is completely anonymized.

Content:

The data set encompasses a context-adapted German version of the Psychological Consequences of Screening Questionnaire (PCQ) (Cockburn et al. 1992, Fichtner et al., 2022), the short form of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (Marteau et al. 1992), a multimorbidity score (KOMO) (Glattacker et al. 2007), a health literacy instrument (HELP) (Farin et al. 2013), the Oslo Social Support Scale (OSSS-3) (Kocalevent et al. 2018), items to measure communication competences (KoKo) (Farin et al. 2014), the MacArthur Scale on Subjective Social Status (Adler et al. 2000) and items on satisfaction with healthcare (ZAP) (Bitzer et al. 1999). Furthermore, background information was collected: Household size, education, occupational status, age, sex, existence of a steady partnership, professional education, future screening attitudes, reception of test result and satisfaction with screening procedure and information on risk factors.