Development and Evaluation of the Eight-Item Caregiver Self-Efficacy Scale (CSES-8).

Background and Objectives This paper describes the development and evaluation of a short caregiving self-efficacy measure. The self-administered 8-item Caregiver Self-Efficacy Scale (CSES-8) was developed to reflect components of typical caregiver support interventions and to be practical for inclusion in future self-efficacy and caregiving research. Research Design and Methods We administered the CSES-8 in 2 samples: participants in an intervention for caregivers of persons with cognitive disabilities, and a voluntary online survey for caregivers of adults. We evaluated the completion rate, item-scale correlations, reliability, descriptive statistics, and preliminary construct validity of the CSES-8 in both samples, and sensitivity to change in the intervention sample. Results The intervention caregivers' sample (N = 158) was 85% female (mean age = 65 years). The online survey sample (N = 138) was 90% female (mean age = 78). In both samples, the CSES-8 had excellent internal consistency reliability (.89 and.88) and good distribution with sufficient variability to detect change. Test–retest reliability was good in the online sample (.73). As evidence of construct validity, most hypotheses were confirmed in both samples. The CSES-8 was sensitive to change at 6 months for caregivers in the intervention program (p <.001). Discussion and Implications The CSES-8 is short, comprehensive with respect to common components of interventions to improve caregivers' quality of life, and sensitive to change. It can serve a useful role exploring mechanisms by which caregiver intervention studies work, and it can be helpful in examining whether self-efficacy mediates the effect of these interventions on various outcomes such as psychological well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]