Psychometric properties of the caregiving burden scale for family caregivers with relatives in nursing homes: Scale development

Aim: Most family caregivers continue their caregiving for frail relatives after admitting them to long-term care facilities. The characteristics of this caregiving differ from those related to caregiving in home-care settings. Thus, a new tool to evaluate the burden of family caregivers in institutional settings is needed. The aim of this study was to develop a new scale, the Caregiving Burden Scale for Family Caregivers with Relatives in Nursing Homes, and to confirm its validity and reliability. Methods: We conducted two cross-sectional questionnaire surveys. The participants were a convenience sample of family members of residents in seven nursing homes for the validation study and in three nursing homes for the test-retest study in Japan. Statistical analyses examined exploratory/confirmatory factor analyses, internal consistency, concurrent/discriminate validity, and test-retest reliability. Results: A four-factor solution with 16 items was selected as the most interpretable questionnaire. In the confirmatory factor analysis, the indices of fitness highly supported these results. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the total score was 0.86 and varied between 0.77 and 0.87 in the four domains. The scale showed moderate correlation with the Nursing Home Hassles Scale, suggesting its concurrent validity. The four domains had only a medium correlation with each other, indicating discriminate validity. Conclusions: The developed scale has acceptable validity and reliability for measuring the caregiving burden of family members with relatives in Japanese nursing homes. Future studies using the scale might lead to the improvement of care for family members with relatives in a long-term care setting.