TY - JOUR
T1 - Measuring Carer Outcomes in an Economic Evaluation
T2 - A Content Comparison of the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit for Carers, Carer Experience Scale, and Care-Related Quality of Life Using Exploratory Factor Analysis
AU - Engel, Lidia
AU - Rand, Stacey
AU - Hoefman, Renske
AU - Bucholc, Jessica
AU - Mihalopoulos, Cathrine
AU - Muldowney, Anne
AU - Ugalde, Anna
AU - McCaffrey, Nikki
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Financial support for this study was provided by the Faculty of Health, Deakin University. The funding agreement ensured the authors’ independence in designing the study, interpreting the data, writing, and publishing the report.
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the carers who participated in this research and warmly thank the members of Deakin Health Economics who tested the pilot survey. Many thanks to Lana Dogan and Jessica Merganovski (Carers Victoria) for their assistance with recruiting participants to the study. The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Financial support for this study was provided by the Faculty of Health, Deakin University. The funding agreement ensured the authors? independence in designing the study, interpreting the data, writing, and publishing the report.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2020/10
Y1 - 2020/10
N2 - Background. To incorporate the spillover effects experienced by carers providing informal care in health policy decisions, new carer-related preference-based measures have been developed for use in economic evaluation, which include the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit for Carers (ASCOT-Carer), Carer Experience Scale (CES), and Care-Related Quality of Life (CarerQoL). The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which these 3 instruments measure complementary or overlapping constructs. Methods. Data were derived from an online survey undertaken with carers residing in Australia. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to ascertain the underlying latent constructs of the 3 measures. Results. Data from 351 informal carers yielded a 5-factor model describing general quality of life outside caring, problems due to caring, fulfilment from caring, social support with caring, and relationship with the care recipient. Most of the ASCOT-Carer and the CarerQol items loaded onto the first and second factors, respectively. The greatest overlap was observed between CarerQol and CES items loading onto the other 3 shared common factors. Limitations. Online data collection resulted in inconsistent responses, which had to be removed to yield logical data. A convenience sampling approach may have compromised the generalizability of study findings. Conclusion. Although some overlap was observed, the 3 carer-related preference-based measures seem to tap into different constructs of carer-related quality of life and caring experiences and cannot be used interchangeably.
AB - Background. To incorporate the spillover effects experienced by carers providing informal care in health policy decisions, new carer-related preference-based measures have been developed for use in economic evaluation, which include the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit for Carers (ASCOT-Carer), Carer Experience Scale (CES), and Care-Related Quality of Life (CarerQoL). The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which these 3 instruments measure complementary or overlapping constructs. Methods. Data were derived from an online survey undertaken with carers residing in Australia. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to ascertain the underlying latent constructs of the 3 measures. Results. Data from 351 informal carers yielded a 5-factor model describing general quality of life outside caring, problems due to caring, fulfilment from caring, social support with caring, and relationship with the care recipient. Most of the ASCOT-Carer and the CarerQol items loaded onto the first and second factors, respectively. The greatest overlap was observed between CarerQol and CES items loading onto the other 3 shared common factors. Limitations. Online data collection resulted in inconsistent responses, which had to be removed to yield logical data. A convenience sampling approach may have compromised the generalizability of study findings. Conclusion. Although some overlap was observed, the 3 carer-related preference-based measures seem to tap into different constructs of carer-related quality of life and caring experiences and cannot be used interchangeably.
KW - carer-related quality of life
KW - economic evaluation
KW - informal care
KW - outcome measurement
KW - preference-based measures
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85088478137&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0272989X20944193
DO - 10.1177/0272989X20944193
M3 - Article
C2 - 32715900
AN - SCOPUS:85088478137
SN - 0272-989X
VL - 40
SP - 885
EP - 896
JO - Medical Decision Making
JF - Medical Decision Making
IS - 7
ER -
