Caregiver Difficulties Scale (CDS): Translation and Psychometric Evaluation Among Iranian Mothers of Cerebral Palsy Children

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to investigate of psychometric properties of the Caregiver Difficulties Scale (CDS) for Iranian caregivers of children with cerebral palsy (CP). After a forward-backward translation, the Persian version of CDS (P-CDS) was administered to 151 Iranian mothers of CP children. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied to measure the factor structure of P-CDS. The reliability was evaluated by examining internal consistency and test-retest method over a 2-week period using Cronbach's alpha and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), respectively. The construct validity was assessed by measuring the association between the scores of the P-CDS and Caregiver Burden Scale (CBS), World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF), the Beck Depression Index (BDI II), and the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS). The fit indices showed that the original model of CDS was relatively adequate (χ²/df = 2.03, CFI = 0.90, TLI = 0.88 and RMSEA = 0.08). All domains of P-CDS met the minimum reliability standards (Cronbach'salpha and ICC > 0.7). All subscales of P-CDS were positively correlated with the CBS, BDI-II and FSS and negatively correlated with the WHOQOL-BREF. The results showed that P-CDS is a valid and reliable measure for assessing the burden of care in Iranian mothers of CP children.

KEYWORDS:

• Caregiver difficulties scale
• mothers
• cerebral palsy
• psychometric properties
• Persian

Declaration of interest

The authors reported no conflicts of interest.

About the Authors

Ata Farajzadeh, Msc,Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Malek Amini, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran university of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Saman Maroufizadeh, PhD, Department of Epidemiology and Reproductive Health, Reproductive Epidemiology Research Center, Royan Institute for Reproductive Biomedicine, ACECR, Tehran, Iran; Champa J. Wijesinghe, PhD, Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ruhuna, Matara, Sri Lanka.

Acknowledgments

Our special thanks to the caregivers of children with CP who consented to participate in this study. Iran University of Medical Science approved and funded this project (grant number: 28553-32-02-95).

Additional information

Funding

Iran University of Medical Sciences [28553-32-02-95].