Assessing the validity and reliability of well-being and stress in family caregivers

Relatively little is known about the psychometric properties of measures that assess the constructs of caregiver strain and well-being. Using structural equation modeling, the authors validated two scales used in the caregiving literature: Caregiver Well-Being Scale and Caregiver Strain Index. Two models were generated for the Well-Being Scale that demonstrate the measure's validity and reliability. Nineteen of the 45 items on the Well-Being Scale validated the scale. Of the original 13 items on the Strain Index, 11 are valid indicators of their respective factors. Structural equation modeling is a useful technique to evaluate these measures, because it identifies the most reliable and valid items for each scale.