Victoria A. Osborne, MSW¹, Leopoldo Cabassa, MSW², David E. Pollio, PhD¹, and Carol S. North, MD, MPE³. (1) George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, 1 Brookings Drive, Campus Box 1196, St. Louis, MO 63130, 314.935.7981, vosborne@gwbmail.wustl.edu, (2) School of Social Work, Washington University, One Brookings Dr., Box 1196, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, (3) School of Medicine, Washington University, Department of Psychiatry, 660 S Euclid, CB 8134, Renard Building, Room 2210, St. Louis, MO 63110

Purpose: Instruments that validly assess caregivers’ experiences can provide crucial information about families coping with mental illness. The purpose of this study was to validate the structure of a Caregiver Appraisal Scale (CAS) originally used for caretakers of elders (Lawton, et al., 1989) and establish concurrent validity of CAS subscales using the Family Burden Interview Schedule (FBIS: Tessler & Gamache, 1994). Methods: A convenience sample of 159 caretakers recruited through community-based family workshops sponsored by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill were interviewed with the CAS and FBIS. The CAS captures positive and negative caregiving experiences, and consists of 28-items in four subscales: burden, impact, satisfaction, and mastery. The FBIS captures amount of time caregivers spend tending to ill relatives’ needs and how much they minded time spent. To examine validity, 30 questions (out of 45) in 4 scales from the FBIS were used for comparison. Confirmatory factory analysis tested the underlying factorial structure of the CAS, and correlations with the FBIS examined concurrent validity. Results: All four subscales of the CAS had good internal consistency (alpha scores between 0.70-0.87). Goodness of fit indices showed both models fit the data well. Correlations between the scales were significant on three of the CAS subscales (r scores between 0.24-0.43). Implications: Findings indicate that use of multiple scales to measure caregiver burden, effect on family life, and time spent tending to the relative with SMI can be a valid measure of the impact of chronic mental illness on the family caregivers.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss the relevance of the study for its impact on families dealing with serious mental illness, as well as potential policy implications.
• Articulate challenges families face in caring for their ill relative.
• Recognize the utility of the instrument in informing research and practice.

Keywords: Family Involvement, Mental Illness

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.