The development of The Epileptic Seizure Parental Burden Scale: A validity and reliability study

It is common for parents to shoulder the burden of care for their children with chronic diseases. However, there are no robust scales to measure the burden of care of parents of children with epilepsy. This study aimed to develop the "Epileptic Seizure Parental Burden Scale (ESPBS)" and evaluate its psychometric properties.

This was a methodological study. The sample consisted of 333 voluntary parents of children with epilepsy. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS v. 25) at a significance level of p < .05. Content validity, item-total correlation, explanatory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the "upper- and lower-27 percent rule," Cronbach's alpha coefficient, and the split-half reliability method were used for psychometric analysis.

The scale consisted of 15 items and two subscales. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) was 0. 961, for which Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant (X² = 5079.527, p < .001), indicating sampling adequacy and correlation between the items for factor analysis. The scale had item-total item correlations of 0.311 to 0.741. The Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA) revealed a two-factor structure. According to the confirmatory factor analysis, x2/df, GFI, AGFI, CFI, and RMSEA were 2.012, 0.93, 0.91, 0.97, and 0.055, respectively. These values were very close to a good fit. The items had factor loadings of 0.508 to 0.890. The total scale explained 60.432% of the total variance. The scale had a Cronbach's alpha of 0.93. The split-half reliability indicated a significant (p < .001) and high (r = 0.890) correlation.

The Epileptic Seizure Parental Burden Scale (ESPBS) has high psychometric properties. It is a valid and reliable instrument that can measure the epileptic seizure burden of parents of children with epilepsy.