Abstract
A burden scale is described that is conceptually specific by concentrating on an assessment of different aspects of distress of care-giving burden and conceptually sensitive by distinguishing two dimensions: the relationship of the carer and the care-receiver and the limitations in the personal life of the carer. To develop a burden scale an analysis was carried out on a database of an intervention study in which 89 informal caregivers of psychogeriatric patients were interviewed twice. A principal components analysis was carried out showing two main factors that could be interpreted as the two dimensions mentioned above. Reliability analysis showed a Cronbach's alpha of 0.84 for the total care-giving burden scale (13 items) and 0.77 for both subscales (7 and 6 items), confirmed in an independent sample. An analysis of the hierarchy of items (Mokken Scale Analysis) showed a strong and moderate hierarchy for the subscales and the total scale, respectively. Finally, an analysis of construct validity showed strong correlations of care-giving burden with depression of the carer and deviant behaviour of the patient.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 483-491 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Age and Ageing |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 1994 |
Keywords
- caregiving
- mental load
- burden scale
- psychogeriatric patients