Adaptation and psychometric evaluation of the Preparedness for Caregiving Scale, Caregiver Competence Scale and Rewards of Caregiving Scale in a sample of Swedish family members of patients with life-threatening illness

• Background: Family members often take on many caring responsibilities, with complex issues and challenges to consider. Feelings of preparedness, competence and reward are identified as concepts that may protect caregiver wellbeing and decrease negative outcomes related to caregiving. Aim: This study aimed to translate, adapt and psychometrically evaluate the Preparedness for Caregiving Scale, Caregiver Competence Scale and Rewards of Caregiving Scale in Swedish family members of patients with life threatening illness. Design: Correlational. Setting/participants: The study took place in four settings including advanced palliative care. The scales were tested in a sample of 125 family members of persons with life-threatening illness. All three scales were tested in relation to distribution of item and scale scores, missing data patterns, dimensionality, convergent validity and reliability. Results: The results in this study indicate that the Swedish versions of The Preparedness for Caregiving Scale, Caregiver Competence Scale and Rewards of Caregiving Scale are valid, reliable and user-friendly scales. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the scales were unidimensional and all demonstrated Cronbach's alpha values of ≥0.9. Conclusions: As a result of this study it is anticipated that the Preparedness for Caregiving Scale, Caregiver Competence Scale and Rewards of Caregiving Scale could provide a basis for collaborative research between different countries and make international studies more comparable and generalizable despite differences in language and culture. © 2011 The Author(s).

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Omvårdnad (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Nursing (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Family caregivers

life-threatening illness

psychometric evaluation

adaptation

adult

article

caregiver

clinical competence

clinical practice

critically ill patient

Cronbach alpha coefficient

factorial analysis

family assessment

female

human

major clinical study

male

palliative therapy

psychometry

rating scale

reliability

reward

Sweden

validity

Omvårdnad

Nursing

Vårdvetenskap

MEDICINE

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)