Dambi Jermaine M, Tapera Lyster, Chiwaridzo Matthew, Tadyanemhandu Cathrine, Nhunzvi Clement
College of Health Sciences, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Malawi Med J. 2017 Jun;29(2):89-96. doi: 10.4314/mmj.v29i2.3.
Providing care for a patient with cancer can negatively affect the health and psychosocial well-being of informal caregivers. However, social support has been enlisted as an essential buffer to stressful life events. There is now a greater call to routinely measure and provide support for caregivers and this is only feasible through use of validated outcome measures. The multidimensional scale of perceived social support (MSPSS) is one of the most commonly used social support outcome measure. Consequently, the MSPSS has been translated into several languages and validated across several populations. The aim of the present study was to translate the MPSS to Shona (Zimbabwean native language) and validate it in caregivers of patients with cancer.
The MSPSS was translated to Shona using a backward-forward translation method, pretested on a group of caregivers (n = 10) before being administered to large sample (N = 126) at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were performed to assess the structural validity of the MSPSS-Shona version. Reliability was assessed using the Cronbach's alpha.
Data for 120 caregivers were analysed. Most were females (69.2%), had attained at least secondary education (81.7%) and married (75%). There was moderate evidence for structural validity for the 2-factor model and excellent evidence for internal consistency as the scale yielded α = 0.905.
Despite moderate evidence for structural validity, the translation of MSPSS into native languages (e.g. MSPSS-Shona) in low resource settings can be deemed as "steps in the right direction" for evidence based practise in management of cancer. There is also need for further psychometric evaluation of the MSPSS-Shona.
为癌症患者提供护理会对非正式护理人员的健康和心理社会幸福感产生负面影响。然而，社会支持已被视为应对压力性生活事件的重要缓冲因素。现在，人们更加强烈地呼吁定期为护理人员进行评估并提供支持，而这只有通过使用经过验证的结果测量方法才可行。多维感知社会支持量表（MSPSS）是最常用的社会支持结果测量方法之一。因此，MSPSS已被翻译成多种语言并在多个人群中进行了验证。本研究的目的是将MSPSS翻译成绍纳语（津巴布韦的母语），并在癌症患者的护理人员中进行验证。
采用前后翻译法将MSPSS翻译成绍纳语，在一组护理人员（n = 10）中进行预测试，然后在帕里伦亚瓦医院对大样本（N = 126）进行施测。进行探索性和验证性因素分析以评估MSPSS-绍纳语版本的结构效度。使用克朗巴赫α系数评估信度。
对120名护理人员的数据进行了分析。大多数为女性（69.2%），至少接受过中等教育（81.7%）且已婚（75%）。有中等证据支持二因素模型的结构效度，且有充分证据表明内部一致性良好，因为该量表的α系数为0.905。
尽管结构效度的证据中等，但在资源匮乏地区将MSPSS翻译成母语（如MSPSS-绍纳语）可被视为癌症管理循证实践“朝着正确方向迈出的步伐”。还需要对MSPSS-绍纳语进行进一步的心理测量学评估。
