Caregiver Assessment of Socioemotional Functioning in People Living With Neurodegenerative Disease (Part 1): Construct Validity of a New Measure.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Neurodegenerative diseases cause socioemotional changes that are commonly measured using laboratory-based assessments. However, these assessments can be labor-, cost-, and time-intensive. We aim to establish the psychometric properties of a novel informant-rated measure, the Caregiver Assessment of Socioemotional Functioning (CASEF).

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Using 3 independent samples including 366 informal caregivers and their 366 care recipients with a variety of neurodegenerative diseases and 240 neurotypical individuals, we conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to establish the structural validity of the CASEF. Additionally, to establish convergent validity, we compared caregiver reports of socioemotional functioning to care recipients' objective performance on a variety of laboratory measures of socioemotional functioning.

RESULTS

The CASEF captured multiple aspects of care recipients' socioemotional functioning, including the ability to (a) generate negative emotional responses (negative emotional reactivity), (b) generate positive emotional responses (positive emotional reactivity), (c) recognize others' emotions (emotion recognition), and (d) control emotional responses (emotion regulation). Each factor was associated with a corresponding laboratory-based measure, except for emotion regulation, which instead corresponded to a clinician-rated measure of care recipient disinhibition.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Findings suggest the CASEF is a psychometrically sound informant-report measure of socioemotional functioning in people living with neurodegenerative diseases and may be a valuable tool for identifying specific socioemotional impairments in the context of neurodegenerative disease.