Abstract

PEREIRA, M. Graça  and  SOARES, António José. Burden in informal caregivers of substance abuse’s addicts: validation of the Caregiver Reaction Assessment (CRA). Psic., Saúde & Doenças [online]. 2011, vol.12, n.2, pp.304-328. ISSN 1645-0086.

Problems caused by drug and alcohol addiction poses are the most difficult to handle in western societies. Caregiving interferes with caregiver’s own personal, family, job and social life, making them more susceptible to interpersonal conflicts. As a result, caregivers often experience feelings of tension, fatigue, uneasiness, stress, frustration, depression, reduced social interactions, changes in self-esteem, among other symptoms. These feelings of burden and stress may convey physical, psychological, emotional, social and financial problems, ultimately affecting the caregiver and patient’s well-being. The Caregiver Reaction Assessment (Given, et al., 1992) is an instrument that assesses specific aspects of caregiving, including positive and negative caregiver reactions, posing as a burden measure. This article presents the adaptation of CRA in a sample of addict’s informal caregivers. The results show that the Portuguese adaptation has good validity, with three factors explaining 58,76% of the observed variance. The Self-Esteem, Impact on Caregiver’s Family Life, Impact on Caregiver’s Health subscales have internal consistency scores of 95, 88 and, 70, respectively. The total 24 items of CRA have an internal consistency score of 95, confirming the good psychometric quality of the instrument. The CRA presents good construct validity, being negatively correlated with Social Support (IESSS). Based on these results, t the scale presents good psychometric qualities meeting the terms for the use on drug and alcohol addict’s informal caregivers as a burden measure.

Keywords : Addiction; Burden; Informal Caregive.

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