Revised Scale for Caregiving Self-Efficacy

Description of Measure: Self-efficacy is a construct from Social Learning Theory, and refers to a subjective belief that a person has about his or her ability to successfully carry out certain kinds of behavior. This measure (Steffen, McKibbin, Zeiss, Gallagher-Thompson, & Bandura, 2002) contains 15 items within 3 subscales (self-efficacy for obtaining respite, responding to disruptive patient behaviors, and controlling upsetting thoughts about caregiving). Items are rated on a 0-100 scale for current beliefs, with the stem of “How confident are you that you…”, and with items such as “Can ask a friend/family member to stay with _______ for a day when you need to see a doctor for yourself?”

The article available in the link below provides means and standard deviations for each item and extensive information on reliability and validity. Alpha coefficients are over .8 for each of the three subscales.

The manuscript describing the measure, and its psychometric featuresopens in new window, is publicly available online.

The Revised Scale for Caregiving Self-Efficacy has been translated into multiple languages including Arabic, Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish (e.g., Nogales-Gonzáles et al., 2015). A systematic review of 58 peer reviewed cross-national studies found good reliability and validity in the different translations, suggesting that it is effective for use in diverse populations of caregivers (Steffen et al., 2018).

References

Nogales-Gonzáles, C., Romero-Moreno, R., Márquez-González, M., & Zarit, S. H. (2015). Moderating effect of self-efficacy on the relation between behavior problems in persons with dementia and the distress they cause in caregivers. Aging & Mental Health, 19(11), 1022-1030, doi: 10.1080/13607863.2014.995593

Steffen, A. M., Gallagher-Thompson, D., Arenella, K. M., Au, A., Cheng, S-T., Crespo, M., Cristancho-Lacroix, V., López, J., Losada-Baltar, A., Márquez-González, M., Nogales-González, C., & Romero-Moreno, R. (2019). Validating the revised scale for caregiving self-efficacy: A cross-national review. The Gerontologist, 59(4), e325-e342, doi: 10.1093/geront/gny004

Steffen, A. M., McKibbin, C., Zeiss, A. M., Gallagher-Thompson, D. and Bandura, A.(2002). The revised scale for caregiving self-efficacy: reliability and validity studies. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 57, 74–86.