Trauma-informed care beliefs scale-comprehensive for child welfare carers using Rasch analysis

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Social Work
• Child Welfare

Background:

• Trauma-informed care (TIC) practices benefit young people, carers, and staff.
• A significant gap exists in psychometrically sound measures for carer adherence to TIC principles.
• TIC practices are believed to positively influence carer attitudes and beliefs, mediating outcomes for carers and young people.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a theoretically comprehensive and psychometrically sound measure of carer beliefs in trauma-informed care (TIC) using Rasch methodology.
• To address the lack of validated instruments for assessing carer adherence to TIC principles.

Main Methods:

• Development of 61 candidate items based on prior research and a scoping review of TIC literature.
• Data collected online from 719 active carers across multiple countries (Australia, Canada, USA, UK, Ireland).
• Rasch analyses were employed to refine the item pool and confirm the scale's psychometric properties.

Main Results:

• A 35-item version of the questionnaire, the Trauma-Informed Care Beliefs Scale for Carers (TIBS-C), was confirmed.
• The TIBS-C demonstrated a good fit with the Rasch model, indicating unidimensionality.
• The scale exhibited reasonable targeting and sound internal consistency reliability (Person Separation Index = 0.81).

Conclusions:

• The TIBS-C is a psychometrically sound measure for assessing child welfare carer beliefs in trauma-informed care (TIC).
• Further research is recommended to establish the predictive validity, test-retest reliability, and clinical utility of the TIBS-C.