TY - JOUR
T1 - A validation study of the CarerQol instrument in informal caregivers of people with dementia from eight European countries
AU - Voormolen, Daphne C.
AU - van Exel, Job
AU - Brouwer, Werner
AU - Skoldunger, Anders
AU - Goncalves-Pereira, Manuel
AU - Irving, Kate
AU - Bieber, Anja
AU - Selbaek, Geir
AU - Woods, Bob
AU - Zanetti, Orazio
AU - Verhey, Frans
AU - Wimo, Anders
AU - Handels, Ron L. H.
AU - ActifCare Consortium
N1 - Funding Information:
This is an EU Joint Programme–Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) project. The project is supported through the following funding organizations under the aegis of JPND– www.jpnd.eu (Germany, German Ministry for Education and Research, Ireland, Health Research Board (HRB), Italy, Italian Ministry of Health, Netherlands, The Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMW)/Alzheimer Netherlands, Norway, The Research Council of Norway, Portugal, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT-JPND-HC/0001/2012), Sweden, Swedish Research Council (SRC), United Kingdom, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/2
Y1 - 2021/2
N2 - Purpose Informal care constitutes an important part of the total care for people with dementia. Therefore, the impact of the syndrome on their caregivers as well as that of health and social care services for people with dementia should be considered. This study investigated the convergent and clinical validity of the CarerQol instrument, which measures and values the impact of providing informal care, in a multi-country sample of caregivers for people with dementia. Methods Cross-sectional data from a sample of 451 respondents in eight European countries, collected by the Actifcare project, were evaluated. Convergent validity was analysed with Spearman's correlation coefficients and multivariate correlations between the CarerQol-7D utility score and dimension scores, and other similar quality of life measures such as CarerQol-VAS, ICECAP-O, and EQ-5D. Clinical validity was evaluated by bivariate and multivariate analyses of the degree to which the CarerQol instrument can differentiate between characteristics of caregivers, care receivers and caregiving situation. Country dummies were added to test CarerQol score differences between countries. Results The mean CarerQol utility score was 77.6 and varied across countries from 74.3 (Italy) to 82.3 (Norway). The scores showed moderate to strong positive correlations with the CarerQol-VAS, ICECAP-O, and EQ-5D health problems score of the caregiver. Multivariate regression analysis showed that various characteristics of the caregiver, care receiver and caregiving situation were associated with caregiver outcomes, but there was no evidence of a country-level effect. Conclusion This study demonstrates the convergent and clinical validity of the CarerQol instrument to evaluate the impact of providing informal care for people with dementia.
AB - Purpose Informal care constitutes an important part of the total care for people with dementia. Therefore, the impact of the syndrome on their caregivers as well as that of health and social care services for people with dementia should be considered. This study investigated the convergent and clinical validity of the CarerQol instrument, which measures and values the impact of providing informal care, in a multi-country sample of caregivers for people with dementia. Methods Cross-sectional data from a sample of 451 respondents in eight European countries, collected by the Actifcare project, were evaluated. Convergent validity was analysed with Spearman's correlation coefficients and multivariate correlations between the CarerQol-7D utility score and dimension scores, and other similar quality of life measures such as CarerQol-VAS, ICECAP-O, and EQ-5D. Clinical validity was evaluated by bivariate and multivariate analyses of the degree to which the CarerQol instrument can differentiate between characteristics of caregivers, care receivers and caregiving situation. Country dummies were added to test CarerQol score differences between countries. Results The mean CarerQol utility score was 77.6 and varied across countries from 74.3 (Italy) to 82.3 (Norway). The scores showed moderate to strong positive correlations with the CarerQol-VAS, ICECAP-O, and EQ-5D health problems score of the caregiver. Multivariate regression analysis showed that various characteristics of the caregiver, care receiver and caregiving situation were associated with caregiver outcomes, but there was no evidence of a country-level effect. Conclusion This study demonstrates the convergent and clinical validity of the CarerQol instrument to evaluate the impact of providing informal care for people with dementia.
KW - Construct validity
KW - CarerQol instrument
KW - Informal care
KW - Dementia
KW - QUALITY-OF-LIFE
KW - OLDER-PEOPLE
KW - VALIDITY
KW - PARENTS
KW - HEALTH
U2 - 10.1007/s11136-020-02657-5
DO - 10.1007/s11136-020-02657-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 33113082
SN - 0962-9343
VL - 30
SP - 577
EP - 588
JO - Quality of Life Research
JF - Quality of Life Research
IS - 2
ER -