Abstract
Although the Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI) is the most widely used multidimensional burden instrument for assessing perceived burden of caregivers, there is no data on its psychometric properties in Spanish, nor on caregivers of dependent persons with various diseases. The objective of this study was to translate the CBI into Spanish and validate it in caregivers of dependent persons with various diseases. Trained evaluators administered the CBI and assessed emotional distress and probable mental disorder in 201 caregivers (87.1% women, mean age 56.2 years). The internal consistency of the CBI was 0.89 (0.74–0.83 among the subscales). There was a significant correlation of emotional distress with both the total burden and each subscale (p < 0.001 in all cases). A total score of 39 and scores of 16, 9, 8, 4, and 2 in burden per time dedicated to care, personal life burden, physical burden, social burden, and emotional burden were suitable cut-off points to discriminate caregivers with probable mental disorder (sensitivity = 63.0%–75.6%, specificity = 63.4%–74.4%). To achieve a greater goodness of fit, the model was re-specified, resulting in a shortened (15-item) instrument. The internal consistency reliability coefficients of the 15-item CBI were satisfactory (Cronbach α = 0.83; 0.77–0.86 among the subscales). Within the 15-item CBI, emotional distress was significantly correlated with the total burden, personal life burden, physical burden, social burden (p < 0.001 in all those cases), and emotional burden (p = 0.001). A total score of 25 and scores of 12, 5, 5, 3, and 1, respectively, in the subscales were identified as cut-off points to discriminate caregivers with probable mental disorder (sensitivity = 46.2%–70.6%, specificity = 43.9%–79.3%). Therefore, the 15-item CBI validly measured caregiver burden with better fit and more parsimoniously than the original CBI.
Highlights
Dependency has demonstrated rapid growth in recent years [1]
There was significant variation in the total caregiver burden depending on the illness of the person cared for, F(3, 196) = 7.194, p < 0.001, with significantly lower burden on caregivers of people with physical disabilities compared to those of people with cognitive impairment (p < 0.001)
In the 15-item Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI), we found significant differences in the total caregiver burden depending on the illness of the person cared for, F(3, 196) = 5.312, p = 0.002, with significantly lower burden on caregivers of people with physical disabilities compared to those of people with cognitive impairment (p = 0.002)
Summary
Dependency has demonstrated rapid growth in recent years [1]. the availability of care and services for may differ significantly across countries [2], in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development more than one in 10 adults assumes the role of non-professional caregiver [3].caring for a dependent loved one usually extends over time and requires long hours of daily dedication (e.g., [4,5]), which can negatively impact the lives of caregivers. Dependency has demonstrated rapid growth in recent years [1]. The availability of care and services for may differ significantly across countries [2], in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development more than one in 10 adults assumes the role of non-professional caregiver [3]. Caring for a dependent loved one usually extends over time and requires long hours of daily dedication (e.g., [4,5]), which can negatively impact the lives of caregivers. Most situations of care result in a decrease of free time and a deterioration of family relationships (80.2% of cases), Int. J. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 217; doi:10.3390/ijerph16020217 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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