ABSTRACT
Objective: To explore types of caregivers’ management approaches, to develop a scale to assess caregivers’ management behaviors and their relationship implications and to examine the scale’s psychometric qualities.
Method: First, based on a qualitative study, developing the corpus of items to align as closely as possible to caregivers’ experience using their own words; second, exploring the structure of the scale and reducing the number of items; and third, studying the validity of the scale.
Results: After assessing the validity requirements of the original corpus of items, an exploratory factor analysis of the first version of the scale with 62 items permitted the identification of three dimensions of caregiver management: “Negative control”, “Positive stimulation” and “Overwhelming feeling”. Because of its redundancy with respect to existing scales, the last dimension was removed. In the last step, a confirmatory factor analysis showed that a 13-item two-order factor model was in an acceptable model.
Conclusion: The 13-item scale can be used to identify caregivers facing difficulty adapting their support as a baseline for following caregivers over time or evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention.
Clinical implications: This scale can rapidly evaluate caregivers’ management behaviors and their relational consequences and monitor outcomes of support interventions.
Clinical implications
This study allows practitioners to better understand caregiver management behaviors and how they impact the caregiving relationship.
This extension of this understanding of the caregiver experience can help practitioners improve interventions and improve caregiver well-being.
This scale is an ecological tool that can rapidly assess caregiver management behaviors and their relational consequences.
This tool will make it possible to evaluate caregivers who face difficulties and might need additional support.
Acknowledgments
The study was supported by the Labex (Laboratory of Excellence) Development of Innovative Strategies for a Transdisciplinary Approach to Alzheimer’s Disease (DISTALZ). We would like to thank the Memory Research and Resources Clinic and the Geriatric Hospital “Les Bateliers” at the University Hospital of Lille, the France Alzheimer association and the respite platforms in the region of Hauts-de-France for their help in this study.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.