The Caregiver Appraisal Scale Appears to be Useful for Evaluating the Caregiver Experience

Past Studies

Past Studies have related caregiver stress to the caregiving situation. Although the concept of caregiver burden after traumatic brain injury has been widely researched, the assessments used in those studies have had limitations. For one thing, most studies were limited to measuring only negative perceptions about the caregiving experience. Also, many of the scales that were used to measure the caregiving experience had not been shown to be useful for caregivers of persons diagnosed with traumatic brain injury.

This Study

This Study evaluated the usefulness of the Caregiver Appraisal Scale for providing information about the caregiving experience. The Caregiver Appraisal Scale was administered to 241 caregivers of adults with traumatic brain injuries from two sites. The majority of the caregivers were women and either parents or spouses of persons with brain injuries. The Caregiver Appraisal Scale identified four different aspects of how caregivers viewed the experience of caring for their loved one with brain injury. The scale measures how much stress is perceived by caregivers, how much satisfaction caregivers experience in their relationship with their loved one with traumatic brain injury, how confident caregivers feel about their ability to provide care for their loved one, and how caregivers view the traditional role of caregiving.The results of this study provide preliminary support for using the Caregiver Appraisal Scale for caregivers of adults with traumatic brain injuries. Data analysis reveals that the Caregiver Appraisal Scale appears to produce valid and consistent results. The researchers recommend the use of the reduced 35-item Modified Caregiver Appraisal Scale (MCAS) and the proposed scoring algorithm in future studies of caregivers of adults with traumatic brain injuries.

Who May Be Affected By These Findings

Administrators and interpreters of the Caregiver Appraisal Scale, researchers, health care providers, caregivers, and persons with brain injury

Caveats

The researchers recommend further scale development and quantitative analysis of the Caregiver Appraisal Scale. The researchers propose that the scale may be further perfected to increase accuracy.

Bottom Line

The 35-item Caregiver Appraisal Scale is recommended for assessing the caregiving experience for caregivers of adults with traumatic brain injury. The authors indicate that this instrument holds the potential of having both research and clinical usefulness. The researchers suggest this scale has the possibility of measuring outcomes. By doing so, it could potentially demonstrate reduction in perceived burden, improvements in caregiver mastery, and improvements in caregiver relationship satisfaction after participation in a treatment program.

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