Analysis of the psychometric properties of an inventory of social skills for elderly family caregivers

Abstract

Due to increases in life expectancy and in the percentage of people with chronic diseases, the likelihood of needing to care for an elderly relative is also rising. Caring for an elderly person requires learning information, developing skills and establishing new routines, which often generates considerable stress. Based on theories of stress, we know that caregivers' abilities, such as their social skills (SS), influence their effectiveness in this role. However, existing instruments for the assessment of SS do not specifically focus on the context of caring for an elderly person. As such, an individual with a high score on a general measure of SS may not be socially skilled in the role of caregiver for an elderly relative. The proposed study is linked to a PhD study. Three stages of the doctoral study have been completed: (a) literature review on the use of SS among caregivers for the elderly, (b) structured interviews about the SS of caregivers, (c) the construction of a new instrument and evaluation of its semantic and construct validity. In this project, we plan to evaluate: (a) the internal consistency of the new instrument (Cronbach's alpha), (b) criterion validity of this instrument (correlations between SS scores and measures of the quality of the caregiver-elder relationship, perceptions of quality of life, burden and depressive symptoms) and (c) perform a factorial analysis of this instrument. The data collection for this phase of the study is being finalized. Once all the steps of this study have been concluded, we expected to present a tool that assists in the evaluation of the SS of caregivers of the elderly and in identifying how to enhance these skills. (AU)