Social support: the experience of hospice family caregivers

The concepts of social support, reciprocity, cost, and conflict were examined through a methodological study that assessed the reliability and validity of Tilden's (1986) Cost and Reciprocity Index (CRI). The CRI was modified for the face-to-face interviews with 70 family members who were caring for a terminally ill relative enrolled in a hospice program. Item analyses was undertaken with the four subscales because of qualitative comments, a desire to streamline administration of the measure and an overall drop in the alpha coefficients compared with those previously reported. Based on this work 25 items were retained in the four subscales, 13 were eliminated. Cronbach's alpha coefficients and the average inter-item correlation for the revised subscales are reported. Correlation analysis of the revised subscales was also undertaken in order to explore the relationship among the subscales and with time since the care receiver's diagnosis.