The cross-cultural study of Diabetes Caregiver Activity and Support Scale

Abstract

Objective Translate and debug Diabetes Caregiver Activity and Support Scale (D-CASS) and to test its reliability and validity in family caregivers of diabetes. Methods The original version of D-CASS was translated according to Brislin model. A total of 330 family caregivers for diabetes were chosen by convenience sampling in Tianjin Medical University General Hospital and Tianjin Medical university Metabolic Disease Hospital (Chu Tianjin Medical University Zhu Xianyi Memorial Hospital) in the period of August 2018 to January 2019 to assess construct validity through exploratory factor analysis(EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Item analysis, Cronbach alpha coefficients, test-retest reliability and the split-half reliability were conducted to test the psychometric properties of the scale. Results There were 11 items in the Chinese version of D-CASS, with 2 common factors extracted by EFA, accounting for 56.623% of the variance. The modified model fitted well with the data through CFA. The coefficient of Cronbach's ɑ for the total D-CASS and the two dimensions was 0.881,0.819 and 0.835 respectively. Test-retest reliability was 0.900 (P<0.01) for the overall scale, and each dimension were 0.823 and 0.883; the split-half reliability coefficient was 0.840, each dimension was 0.822 and 0.806. Conclusions It indicated that the Chinese version of D-CASS was valid and reliable for the evaluation of family caregiver activity and support for diabetes. Key words: Diabetes mellitus; Family caregiver; Reliability; Validity