Validation in Spanish of the GAIN instrument for its application in caregivers of patients with multimorbidity in the home environment

Objective

Validation of the informal care gains scale available in Spanish to extend it to a version for caregivers of patients with multimorbidity at home.

Method

Psychometric validation study in family caregivers of people with multimorbidity in home care. Content validation was carried out using a panel of experts and the Delphi technique and subsequent empirical validation in a sample of family caregivers of patients with multimorbidity in home care.

Results

PHASE I: 3 of the 10 items were modified to specify the study population. PHASE II: A total of 227 subjects, with a median age of 84 years in patients and 59 years in family caregivers. 78.9% of the caregivers were women. The reliability analysis offered McDonald's omega values of .82, with an average inter-item correlation of .41. The test-retest reliability offered a value of .95. The bifactor structure obtained a good fit: RMSEA of .08 (90% CI .06–.11), TLI .88, explaining 40.6% of the variance. The instrument showed discriminative capacity between caregivers based on overload (p < .001).

Conclusions

The GAIN scale is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the gains of family caregivers of people with multimorbidity in home care. It is easy to use and allows you to understand what factors to enhance in caregivers to preserve their resilience during the process.