Reliability of the Chinese version of the perceived family burden scale

The study examined reliability of the 24-item Chinese version of the perceived family burden scale (CPFBS), which is a measure of behaviors associated with Chinese people with schizophrenia and the impacts of these behaviors on caregivers and relatives. Many patients with mental illness are returning to the community and living with families. Unfortunately, family members who have to live with the patients experience a sense of burden. The CPFBS is able to measure the perceived burden of the family, which enables therapists to formulate the most appropriate family intervention for them. The CPFBS was translated and culturally adapted from the English version. Some 21 main caregivers of individuals with schizophrenia were asked to rate the items on the scale by a competent administrator through a telephone interview (this was carried out twice, with 1 day between each interview). The results showed that CPFBS had high internal consistency (alpha=0.85) and acceptable test-retest reliability (r=0.86). We suggest that the CPFBS is ready to be used by clinicians and researchers in the study on family burden of individuals with schizophrenia in Hong Kong and in Chinese communities in other countries.