Measuring carers' knowledge of depression in aged care settings: the Knowledge of Late Life Depression Scale-Revised.

BACKGROUND

Aged care staff is increasingly relied upon to assist with the recognition and treatment of depression in older care recipients. However, there exist few reliable and comprehensive measures that assess aged care staffs' knowledge about late life depression. The Knowledge of Late-Life Depression Scale is one such scale. In this study we modified this measure in an attempt to improve its psychometric properties so that it can be used with confidence in research and practise. Our modifications to the original measure resulted in the Knowledge of Late-Life Depression Scale-Revised.

METHOD

Aged care staff (N=149) from 20 low level care facilities and community care facilities in Melbourne, Australia, completed the Knowledge of Late-Life Depression Scale-Revised.

RESULTS

Using Confirmatory Factor Analysis and reliability analysis, the Knowledge of Late-Life Depression Scale-Revised was found to demonstrate three robust and internally consistent factors. These factors were: symptoms of depression, facts about depression, and myths of depression. The revised measure was found to yield superior psychometric properties compared to the original measure.

LIMITATIONS

Replication studies are required, especially with other aged carer samples to ensure that the factor structure and internal consistency of the measure are supported across different aged care contexts in Australia and elsewhere.

CONCLUSIONS

The Knowledge of Late-Life Depression-Revised is a measure that can be used by researchers and agencies to assess the knowledge of depression among professional care staff. The measure is expected to be especially useful as an assessment tool for training and educational purposes.