[Reliability and validity of a new assessment of the burden on caregivers (ABC-16)]

The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of a newly developed self-administered assessment of the burden on caregivers (ABC-16) in 82 caregivers (21 men: 61 women, mean age 61 +/- 13 years) including 51 family members caring for patients after stroke with physical impairments, and 31 family members caring for patents with chronic schizophrenia. The ABC-16 consists of 16 items and is designed to cover 4 domains (burden of troubles with care receivers, burden of loss of social life, financial burden, burden of impairment of caregiver's health). The internal consistency was high (alpha=0.854) and significant correlations among the four dimensions were found (P < 0.0001). Factorial analysis showed 5 latent factors and a multiple regression analysis showed the strong correlations between the ABC-16 and care giving during the night (P = 0.0045), which strongly suggested excellent validation. The mean and standard deviation of the total score of the ABC-16 was 14.66 +/- 7.87 (burden of troubles with care receivers; 4.10 +/- 2.36, burden of loss of social life; 4.21 +/- 2.54, financial burden; 2.93 +/- 2.65, burden of impairment of caregiver's health; 3.43 +/- 2.32). The results indicated that the ABC-16 was a tool assess care burden with high reliability and validity, and was carried out easily and quickly by all participants without complex explains.