Validation Study: The Iranian Version of Caregiver Abuse Screen (CASE) among Family Caregivers of Elderly with Dementia

ABSTRACT

Since abuse screening is difficult among the elderly with dementia, detection of elder abuse is a serious issue; meanwhile, the number of available tools to assess elder abuse by caregivers is limited. The aim was to evaluate validity and reliability of the Iranian version Caregiver Abuse Screen (CASE) tool. After the translating process of the tool to the Farsi language for 236 dementia participants ≥60 years old and their informal caregivers’ from outpatient’ clinics, in a cross-sectional method then the validity, reliability and factorial structure of the CASE was evaluated. The translated Iranian version CASE reveals a good psychometric property (α = 0.868) with strong internal consistency and reliability. Some variables (depression, burden, dementia intensity, and ADLs) were associated with abuse in dementia elderly. The two-factor structure was obtained in exploratory factor analysis labeled interpersonal abuse and neglect. Generally, the Iranian version of CASE approved with sufficient validity and reliability as a suitable instrument to find the risk of elder abuse among dementia caregivers.

KEYWORDS:

• Abuse
• elderly
• dementia
• validation
• CASE tool

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article, also no sponsorship of the government in this research.

Ethical approval

The study has been approved by the Department of Geriatric & Gerontology, Medical School, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran; project No. 96-03-30-36276, respect to human dignity, privacy, and autonomy, leading to minimizes harms, risks, and maximizes benefits.

Informed consent

The trained nurses asked Outpatients’ dementia elderly caregivers’ to declare if been willing to participate in this study and then informed consent was obtained from all participants.