O'Rourke Norm, Tuokko Holly A
Gerontology Research Center, Simon Fraser University at Harbor Center, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Gerontologist. 2003 Feb;43(1):121-7. doi: 10.1093/geront/43.1.121.
Given the exponential increase in dementia prevalence anticipated in the coming years, measurement of caregiver burden has become common in gerontological research and clinical practice. The Zarit Burden Interview (BI) has emerged as the most widely utilized burden measure. The current study examines the psychometric properties of responses to an abridged, 12-item version of this scale.
Data were derived from a national epidemiological study of dementia incidence and patterns of care (N = 1,095). Informal caregivers of surviving institutionalized and community-dwelling index subjects were interviewed 5 years subsequent to initial recruitment (n = 770).
Results of both the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses support a two-factor structure of responses to this abridged scale. Subsequent to control for demographic variables, dementia illness features, and baseline depressive symptoms at baseline, responses to this brief BI provide a significant increase to prediction of depressive symptoms at Time 2 (R(2) =.24, p <.01) with no additional variance provided by the 10 remaining items from the complete BI (deltaR(2) = 0, ns).
The results of this study are discussed relative to theory and the operational definition of caregiver burden. Findings can be generalized with greater confidence given the representative and national composition of caregivers recruited for this study.
鉴于预计未来几年痴呆症患病率将呈指数级增长，照顾者负担的测量在老年学研究和临床实践中已变得很常见。扎里特负担访谈（BI）已成为使用最广泛的负担测量方法。本研究考察了对该量表一个简化的12项版本的回答的心理测量特性。
数据来自一项关于痴呆症发病率和护理模式的全国性流行病学研究（N = 1095）。在初次招募5年后，对存活的机构化和社区居住指数受试者的非正式照顾者进行了访谈（n = 770）。
探索性和验证性因素分析的结果均支持对这个简化量表的回答具有双因素结构。在控制了人口统计学变量、痴呆症疾病特征和基线时的基线抑郁症状后，对这个简短BI的回答对预测第2次时的抑郁症状有显著增加（R² =.24，p <.01），完整BI的其余10项未提供额外方差（ΔR² = 0，无显著性）。
本研究结果结合理论和照顾者负担的操作定义进行了讨论。鉴于本研究招募的照顾者具有代表性且来自全国，研究结果可以更有信心地进行推广。
