SHBC1061
N.WEE1, C.Y. CHEONG2, P. YAP2, C. MALHOTRA3
MOH Holdings Pte Ltd (MOHH)1, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital2, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School3
Positive outcomes in dementia caregiving are important yet, to our knowledge, there is no validated scale to assess positive caregiving outcomes in severe dementia. We examined the psychometric properties of Gains in Alzheimer’s care INstrument (GAIN) in a population comprising family caregivers of persons with severe dementia (PWSDs).
Family caregivers of community-dwelling PWSDs recruited from seven major public restructured hospitals in Singapore, six home care foundations and two hospices were administered a questionnaire with GAIN and other measures. The psychometric properties of GAIN were examined, in particular, exploratory factor analysis and internal consistency of the scale.
215 caregivers completed the survey. Most caregivers were caring for their parents (father – 12.5%, mother – 62.3%). The average age of the PWSDs was 82.9 years and most had received no formal education (50.7%) or only primary school education (22.8%).
The mean GAIN score was 32.9 (SD±6.1). Internal consistency of GAIN by Cronbach’s α coefficient was good at 0.866 [95% CI: 0.826, 0.891]. The α coefficients for each subscale of GAIN, namely, personal gains, gains in relationship, and higher-level gains were 0.811 [95% CI: 0.761, 0.852], 0.694 [95% CI: 0.595, 0.775], and 0.692 [95% CI: 0.588, 0.775] respectively.
Principal component analysis revealed a single component with an eigenvalue >1 at 4.855, accounting for 48.5% of the variance.
In family caregivers of PWSDs, GAIN has good internal consistency and a single-dimensional factor for measuring gains in dementia caregiving, which confirms its validity for assessing positive caregiving outcomes in severe dementia.
