Paper
Saturday, 22 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Developing and Testing Measurement Instruments
A New Measure of Lay Caregiving for Adults on Dialysis
Martha Elizabeth Horsburgh, PhD, RN1, Gail Laing2, Heather Beanlands, RN, PhD3, Xiaowei A. Meng, MSc2, and Lori Harwood, RN, BAAN, MSc4. (1) Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, (2) College of Nursing, University of Saskatchewan, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada, (3) School of Nursing, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, (4) London Health Sciences Centre, London, ON, Canada
Learning Objective #1: The learner will be able to describe the future uses of the new research measure to advance nursing practice.
Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to describe the future uses of the new research measure to advance nursing research, theory, and health services policy.
This presentation describes the development and psychometric testing of a new measure of Lay CareGiving for Adults receiving Dialysis (LC-GAD) designed to quantify the breadth and frequency of caregiving activities provided to adults on dialysis. Ethics approvals were received from all participating agencies. Testing was carried out with a non-random, theoretical sample of 447 women and men, living in Saskatchewan and Ontario, who were identified by adults on dialysis as “the main person who helped them with their care at home”. Exploratory factor analyses were used with a minimum factor loading of 0.40 and Eigenvalues >1.0 for item retention. Various oblique and orthogonal rotations were used and results examined in relation to the underlying thematic dimensions of caregiving identified in the research team’s previous qualitative work (Beanlands, et al., in press; Horsburgh et al., 2003). Analyses produced a final 41-item, two part measure named the Think-LC-GAD and the Task-LC-GAD, respectively. The 27-item Think-LC-GAD was deemed to measure the abstract, cognitive work of caregiving. Five subscales explaining 67% of the variance were supported. The Cronbach’s alpha for the Think-LC-GAD was .95 and alphas for all subscales exceeded 0.70. The 14-item Task-LC-GAD was deemed to measure the concrete, observable tasks of caregiving. Seven, two-item subscales explained 82% of the variance. The Cronbach’s alpha for the Task-LC-GAD was 0.83 and alphas for the subscales were .70 or greater. Construct validity of the Think- and Task-LC-GADs was further supported using hypothesis testing and known groups approaches. Test-retest reliability of the Think- and Task-LC-GADs was supported with coefficients of 0.80 and 0.76 respectively. Implications for future research, theory, practice and policy are discussed. This Research was funded by the Nursing Care Partnerships Program, Canadian Nurses Foundation and through an Allied Health Grant, the Kidney Foundation of Canada.

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