Construction and Psychometric Analysis of a Social Skills Inventory For Caregivers of Elderly Family Members

Abstract

With the rise in life expectancy and high incidence of chronic degenerative diseases among the elderly, there is a growing demand of time to dedicate for caring for an elderly family member. Caring for a dependent elderly person requires the acquisition of skills that are specific to this context, such as social skills (SS), which affect the wellbeing of both the caregiver and the care recipient. Given the situation-dependent nature of SS, one must be able to identify deficits in caregivers' SS, but no instruments for evaluating SS in this population were found. Thus, the aim of this thesis was to develop an SS inventory for caregivers of elderly relatives, and to analyze its psychometric properties. A review of the literature on the use of SS among caregivers for the elderly is presented in Manuscript I. Based on a literature search in major Psychology databases, nine studies (seven articles and two dissertations) were found: four about intervention evaluations and five reporting SS correlations with burden, stress, self-esteem, social support, or quality of relationship. Evidence shows that caregivers with a better-developed SS repertoire have more positive perceptions of their quality of life. In addition, although there are instruments, in Brazil no tool to assess SS in other areas was found for the context of caregivers of elderly family members. Thus, it was concluded that it would be important to build an instrument for the purpose of assisting in the identification of SS deficits in this population. In Manuscript II, the objectives were to depict the primary conflicts that arise when caring for an elderly family member and to identify SS considered important in this situation, therefore obtaining information to prepare items for a new instrument. Interviews were conducted with 50 caregivers of the elderly, 25 elderly care-recipients and 25 professionals in the field of aging. The main conflicts involved difficulties to reconcile differences of opinion or financial issues. Most useful SS were: expressing positive feelings, controlling aggressiveness, and discussing problems. On the basis of this information, 37 items were written, and an initial version of an instrument to evaluate the SS of those who care for elderly family members was created (IHS-CI). The aim of Manuscript III was to describe the initial steps for the validation of this new tool. In Study 1, five independent judges conducted a semantic and content analysis of the instrument, which resulted in the exclusion of six items. In Study 2, to obtain evidence about the psychometric properties of the new version of this instrument, 205 participants, all of whom cared for an elderly family member, completed the IHS-CI along with five other measures. Based on an analysis of the tool's internal structure, three factors were identified: expression of emotions, assertive communication, and search for information. The global internal reliability of the instrument was excellent (α = 0.88). Scores on IHS-CI were positively correlated with better quality of life and positive caregiver-elderly interactions; and negatively correlated with burden, depression, and conflicts. Additional studies are needed to gather more evidence of IHSCI validity and to establish norms for interpretation of test-scores. After this, the instrument will be ready to evaluate SS of caregivers of elderly family members, to guide interventions that can contribute with wellbeing and quality of life of both caregivers and care recipients.

Keywords

• social skills
• caregivers
• elderly
• psychometrics
• stress
• psychological