Development of a preliminary tool to assess care-giving practices by family members with Schizophrenia: A report from India

Abstract

Introduction

Care-giving practices by family members have inherent value and importance in the provision of care for patients with schizophrenia. There is dearth of assessment tools that focus on practices followed by caregivers’ while dealing with their relatives with schizophrenia, especially from India.

Objective

To develop a tool for the assessment of ‘care-giving practices’ followed by family members while caring for their patients with schizophrenia.

Aims

(a) To construct a reliable and valid tool on ‘care-giving practices’ followed by family members while caring for their patients with schizophrenia; (b) To determine the various ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practices within this tool.

Methods

Initial detailed literature (Pubmed, Goggle search with input by the caregivers generated a list of 24 commonly used practices; which was shortened to 17 statements whose face validity was tested by 14 mental health professionals. Hindi translation with ‘test-retest’ reliability was conducted. Finally, ‘Consensus based approach’ was adopted by the mental health professionals to arrive at objective (b) i.e. statements reflecting ‘good’ or ‘bad’ practice.

Results

Final questionnaire comprised 15 statements with adequate face and content validity and high test-retest reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.747). 6 items reflected ‘good’ and 9 reflected ‘poor’ practice respectively with maximum score of 15; and categorization from ‘very poor’ to ‘very good’ practices.

Conclusion

This preliminary yet simple and easy to use tool will give better understanding about how family members provide ‘care-giving’ practices for patients with schizophrenia. However, this needs further validation, replicability, and possible modifications in a multi-cultural, multi-linguistic country like India.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.