| Learning Objective #1: Describe four motives for helping another person. | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Discuss caregivers' motivation to help family members. |
Objective: To examine an international measure of motivation for helping another person (Motives for Helping) by providing nursing care either as a nurse or family caregiver.
Design: An instrument development design with multiple testings was used. Population: Initial subjects’ were 537 nurses from across the global (USA, Australia, Canada, Philippines, Korea and Nigeria) and another later sample included (N=93) family caregivers’ of home bound adults. Concept Studied: The main concepts of this study were Batson’s four empirically derived helping pathways that explain different types of motivation for helping another person (reward seeking, altruism, distress reactions, and punishment-avoidance).
Methods: A Principal Components factor analysis on the 16 Likert type items Motives for Helping Scale was completed. Criterion-related validity was ascertained using a triangulated, independent validation procedure with qualitative (interview) data. Interview data was categorized based on Batson’s theoretical pathway definitions, by coders blinded to instrument scale scores.
Findings: Three of Batson’s four helping pathways were extracted during factor analysis. This three-factor solution explained 66.6% of the variance and was confirmed by a 97% agreement between three of Batson’s pathways and helping motive score. The content analyses of the caregivers’ descriptive interview data also coincided with the 3-factor solution. The scale items for Batson’s fourth helping pathway, distress reaction, were not retained due to cross loading.
Conclusions: The Motives for Helping Scale accurately measures three of four theoretically derived motivations for helping another. The scale should be reanalyzed in a larger sample of multicultural caregivers.
Implications: This measure could permit nurses to assess and provide interventions specific to a nurse’s or each family caregiver's motivation for helping. Aligning nursing interventions to caregiver motives for helping can provide reinforcement for caregivers and potentially enhance patient’s home care outcomes.
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Back to 14th International Nursing Research Congress
Sigma Theta Tau International
10-12 July 2003