Psychometric Properties of A Resilience Questionnaire for In-home Caregivers of Aged People

Population aging is increasing and aged people need supports and care from individuals who are resilient enough in providing all types of care. Measuring the resilience of caregivers requires a valid and reliable tool. This study aimed at designing, analyzing the psychometric properties, and using a questionnaire to investigate resilience among in-home caregivers of aged people.

In first phase, a descriptive study was performed in 400 people aged 20 years and older in Isfahan, Tehran, Shiraz, and Hamedan provinces, Iran and the second phase was carried out in 216 individuals in 2021. Professors and experts in different fields, including psychology, psychiatry, gerontology, health of aged people, and geriatrics cooperated at different stages of designing the questionnaire. Face validity, content validity index, content validity ratio, convergent validity and divergent validity, exploratory factor analysis, and reliability (Cronbach's alpha) of the questionnaire were assessed. Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to report the data.

At content validation stage, 31 items out of 70 were removed from the questionnaire. One other item was removed at internal consistency phase. In exploratory factor analysis, based on the acceptability of the factor load, 38 items were defined in 4 factors. These factors were named self-efficacy and acceptance, tolerance and controllability, responsibility and commitment, and behavioral emotion regulation, which explained 48.70% of the dispersion. Convergent validity and divergent validity were confirmed due to strong correlation between the scores of each item and its corresponding scale score (P<0.0001). The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient for the whole questionnaire was 0.92 and for the scales ranged between 0.668 and 0.912.

Considering the validity and reliability of the questionnaire designed for investigating the resilience of in-home care givers of aged people, current findings could be used in education, research, and prevention. Families, aged people, researchers and the health researchers are among its beneficiaries.