Unbiased Alzheimer's Caregiver Health Assessment

描述(由申请人提供)：家庭照顾者的认可和照看阿尔茨海默病(AD)患者的后果导致了一些衡量照顾者负担和满足感的工具。护理经验和负担的广度要求可靠、全面和有效的测量工具，适合复杂和动态的患者-照顾者关系。只有这样，才能对他们进行可靠的评估，以便适当地协助照顾者提供护理，并保护他们免受过度压力的并发症的影响。这种类型的工具可用于临床医生和其他人在早期发现工作中评估照顾者的情况，筛查处于危险中的照顾者，并指导适当和及时的干预。拟议的项目将利用现代先进的心理测量学方法，即项目反应理论(IRT)，来评估资源中用于加强阿尔茨海默氏症照顾者健康(REACH)倡议的核心措施。这项由国家老龄研究所(NIA)和国家护理研究所(NINR)发起的倡议的一个主要优势是护理人员(非西班牙裔白人、非西班牙裔黑人和西班牙裔)的种族和民族多样性样本很大(N=1222)。鉴于对不同语言、文化和教育背景的护理者的需求敏感的护理者健康评估工具的可获得性有限，这个拟议的项目将侧重于语言和文化方面。我们的两个具体目标是：1)测试REACH核心测量组件的心理测量学特性，并检查语言和文化对项目反应的影响；2)比较社会人口学和临床护理人员群体在其他心理测量特征的核心测量组件上的测量等价性，并探索随着时间的推移对临床变化的敏感性。总而言之，这个二级数据分析项目的目的有两个。第一个目的是对REACH仪器的核心电池进行基于IRT的项目分析，以确定显示测量偏差的项目。对这种DIP影响的了解将为在不同文化背景的AD照顾者群体中更有效地使用这些工具提供基础。第二个目的是考察维持或移除具有显著不同项目功能(DIP)的项目对量表水平统计特性的影响。这项研究的完成可能会提供有用的数据，其基础是各种规模衡量的基于人口的大样本。‘

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The recognition of family caregivers and the consequence of caregiving for Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients have resulted in some measurement tools for caregiver burden and fulfillment. The breadth of the caregiving experience and burden demands reliable, comprehensive and validated measurement tools suited to the complicated and dynamic patient-caregiver relationships. Only then can they be reliably assessed and so that caregivers be appropriately assisted in their provision of care and protected from complications of excess stress. This type of tool can be useful to assess a caregiver's situation by clinicians and others in early detection efforts to screen for caregivers at risk and to direct proper and timely interventions. The proposed project will utilize modern advanced psychometric methods, i.e., item response theory (IRT), to evaluate the core battery of measures used in the Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health (REACH) initiative. A primary strength of this National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Institute on Nursing Research (NINR) sponsored initiative is the large (N = 1,222) racially and ethnically diverse sample of caregivers (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic). Given the limited availability of caregiver health assessment tools that are sensitive to the needs of linguistically, culturally, and educationally diverse caregivers, this proposed project will focus on language and culture aspects. Our two specific aims are: 1) to test the psychometric properties of the REACH core battery of measures and to examine the effect of language and culture on item response; and 2) to compare the measurement equivalence of the socio-demographic and clinical groups of caregivers on the core battery of measures in terms of other psychometric characteristics, and to explore the sensitivity to clinical change over time. In summary, the purpose of this secondary data analysis project is twofold. The first purpose is to perform IRT-based item analyses of the REACH core battery of instruments in order to identify items that show measurement bias. Knowledge about such DIP impacts will provide a basis for more effective use of the instruments in culturally diverse AD caregiver populations. The second purpose is to examine the effects on scale-level statistical properties of maintaining or removing items with significant differential item functioning (DIP). The completion of this study may provide useful data, on the basis of a large population-based sample on various scale-level measures. '