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Published on: April 23, 2014
Short-form Zarit Caregiver Burden Interviews were valid in advanced conditions
Irene J Higginson1, Wei Gao, Diana Jackson
1King's College London, Department of Palliative Care, Policy and Rehabilitation, School of Medicine at Guy's, King's College and St Thomas' Hospitals, London, United Kingdom. irene.higginson@kcl.ac.uk <irene.higginson@kcl.ac.uk>
Objectives:
To assess six short-form versions of Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI-12, ZBI-8, ZBI-7, ZBI-6, ZBI-4, and ZBI-1) among three caregiving populations.
Study Design And Setting:
Secondary analysis of carers' surveys in advanced cancer (n=105), dementia (n=131), and acquired brain injury (n=215). All completed demographic information and the ZBI-22 were used. Validity was assessed by Spearman correlations and internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha. Overall discrimination ability was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC).
Results:
All short-form versions, except the ZBI-1 in advanced cancer (rho=0.63), displayed good correlations (rho=0.74-0.97) with the ZBI-22. Cronbach's alphas suggested high internal consistency (range: 0.69-0.89) even for the ZBI-4. Discriminative ability was good for all short forms (AUC range: 0.90-0.99); the best AUC was for ZBI-12 (0.99; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.98-0.99) and the second best for ZBI-7 (0.98; 95% CI: 0.96-0.98) and ZBI-6 (0.98; 95% CI: 0.97-0.99).
Conclusions:
All six short-form ZBI have very good validity, internal consistency, and discriminative ability. ZBI-12 is endorsed as the best short-form version; ZBI-7 and ZBI-6 show almost equal properties and are suitable when a fewer-question version is needed. ZBI-4 and ZBI-1 are suitable for screening, but ZBI-1 may be less valid in cancer.
