Care Relationship Sale. Preliminary report

Aim of the study The aim of this study was to determine the psychometric properties of the Care Relationship Scale. Subject or material and methods The participants of the cross-sectional quantitative study were 180 persons in the age range of 28-70 years (M=48.11; SD=7.53). The conducted procedures included: confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analyses and Student t tests for independent and dependent samples. Results A two-factor structure of the Care Relationship Scale (CRS) was identified. The final version of CRS consists of 60 statements, 36 of which refer to the dimension of affective care, and 24 items refer to the dimension of instrumental care. CRS has a high internal consistency. The validity of CRS was confirmed, indicating significant correlations between the scores on the CRS dimensions and 4DSQ, DFPS- PL, ADL, IADL, SF, BPNSF and MSPSS. Discussion The structure of CRS, which was determined in the author’s own study, confirms the previous research results pointing out to the importance of both emotional and instrumental support in caring for family members, including elderly ones. It is noted that to a great extent it is the health situation and the disease stage that set the scope, kind and proportions of the provided support. The care relationship between adult children and their ageing parents was not differentiated by the gender of adult children. Conclusions The Care Relationship Scale is a reliable and valid tool for the measurement of the psychological aspects of care provided by adult children to their ageing parents. The conducted analyses give grounds for using CRS in scientific research.