• Int J Older People Nurs · Dec 2020

    Investigating the psychometric properties of the Carers' Fall Concern instrument to measure carers' concern for older people at risk of falling at home: A cross-sectional study.

    • Seng Giap Marcus Ang, Anthony Paul O'Brien, and Amanda Wilson.
    • School of Nursing and Midwifery, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA, Australia.
    • Int J Older People Nurs. 2020 Dec 1; 15 (4): e12338.

    AimsThis study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Carers' Fall Concern Instrument (CFC-I) for measuring carers' concern for older people (care recipients) at risk of falling.BackgroundFamily carers are crucial in preventing older people from falling at home. Their concerns for older people at risk of falling have severe implications on carers' psychological well-being and ability to prevent falls. However, there is no validated instrument measuring this concern.MethodsA cross-sectional study was used to examine the validity and reliability of the CFC-I. Carers looking after older people living at home completed the 17-item CFC-I and provided information about their care arrangements and the older people's fall history. Construct validity was tested using exploratory factor analysis and hypothesis testing. Internal consistency was determined by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient.Results143 carers completed the survey either by face-to-face or by online. After deleting one item with an item-total correlation of below 0.3, the remaining 16-item CFC-I reported a Cronbach alpha of 0.93. Construct validity was supported by strong item-total correlations (0.51-0.76), mean inter-item correlations (0.47) and factor loadings (0.557-0.809). Factor analysis revealed three factors that include concerns about care recipients' health and function, living environment and carers' perception of fall and fall risk. The 16-item CFC-I can discriminate between carers of older people with and without recurrent (fallen 3/ more times) falls.ConclusionThe 16-item CFC-I is a valid and reliable scale for measuring carers' concern for the older people's risk of falling. Future analysis of test-retest and inter-rater reliability of the instrument will further support its clinical use for carers.Implications For PracticeThe newly developed multi-item CFC-I can be used to quantify the carers' level of fall concern and inform targeted interventions for carers when caring for older people who are at risk of falling.© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…