The Renal Caregiver Burden Scale: Phase One

Abstract

Caregiver burden is becoming more important as the aging population becomes larger. This growth applies to caregivers involved in chronic illness management in general, and chronic renal disease in particular. The purpose of the present study was to create the Renal Caregiver Burden Scale (RCBS) and establish basic measures of its reliability and validity. In a preliminary test for the new measure, seven master’s level renal social workers from various clinical settings across the country interviewed 52 voluntary dialysis patient caregivers. The measures used were thought to be associated with the construct of burden. A Cronbach alpha analysis yielded a reasonably high internal consistency reliability of 0.84 for the 16-item RCBS. The measure also correlated highly with the Zarit Burden Interview at 0.72 and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale depression scale at 0.70. Recommendations for further refining and validation of the measure with a larger sample are discussed. The relatively high degrees of reliability and validity for the first outing are encouraging, although 2 of the 16 items need restating due to ceiling and basement effects.