Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Nursing

Date of Defense

5-15-2014

Graduate Advisor

Jean A. Bachman, PhD

Co-Advisor

Richard Yakimo

Committee

Kuei-Hsiang Hseuh

Thomas Meuser

Abstract

Because family caregivers provide a substantial amount of informal care to dependent loved ones, the potential burden such care may place on family members is an important area for clinical research and intervention. While the provision of transportation is recognized in the literature as a caregiving task and a component of global burden, few studies, to date, have addressed this as a distinct concern for measurement and intervention. The purpose of this study was to determine if an item set focused specifically on transportation burden would be additive to accepted global measures of burden in a volunteer sample of caregivers. This is the third phase of a combined qualitative and quantitative research effort. Since transportation burden is thought to contribute to caregiver burden, Phase 3 utilized exploratory factor analysis to finalize the TBQ structure. Criterion validity of this new measure was evaluated using two accepted caregiver scales, the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) and Caregiver Strain Index (CSI). The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was also administered to assess for presence of depression among caregivers. This sample included 150 self-selected, family caregivers. After exploratory factor analysis, five subthemes arose: definitive burden, extraneous factors, time and self-sacrifice, care recipient attributes, and acceptance. Three of these subthemes were consistent with preliminary qualitative studies. Criterion validity was acceptable for both the ZBI (r = 0.645) and the CSI (r = 0.615) which showed moderate correlations between the TBQ and extant scales. Overall, this sample of family caregivers had mild to moderate caregiver burden, caregiver stress, and was depressed based on total scores of the ZBI, CSI, and CES-D respectively. Based on total scores for the TBQ, the majority of this sample also showed evidence of transportation burden using the new measure.

OCLC Number

890934121

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