Caregivers in Home Health Care Situations: Measurement and Relations Among Critical Concepts

This article discusses several concepts critical to the investigation of caregivers in home health care contexts. The variables caregiver involvement, social support, caregiver reactions, and mental health outcomes are discussed conceptually, and operationalizations for these concepts are proposed. The psychometric properties of the proposed scales and relations among these scales are tested on data derived from two samples of care providers for patients with Alzheimer's disease. The research confirms internally consistent measures for all scale variables and explores relations among these variables with regression and path analytic techniques. The model developed suggests the importance of communication variables (i.e., the availability of social resources and perceptions of social support) in positively affecting the caregiver's reactions to the caregiving situation and the caregiver's mental health.