Psychometric validation of the Persian version of the CarerQol-7D instrument on caregivers of patients with multiple sclerosis

Background: Providing informal care can deeply influence, both physically and emotionally, the quality of life (QoL) of caregivers, especially when the disease becomes chronic. CarerQol-7D is one of the most common instruments for measuring informal care. We aimed to develop a Persian version of the CarerQol-7D in the context of Iranian caregivers of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). To this end, we investigated the validity and reliability of the mentioned instrument. Methods: In this cross-sectional study using consecutive sampling method, the backward-forward translation method was used to achieve the Persian version of CarerQol-7D. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to perform confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Cronbach's alpha was also reported for this instrument for the evaluation of internal consistency. Results: This tool was evaluated based on a sample of 452 caregivers of patients with MS from Sina Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Most of the participants were men (62.6%) and spouses of patients (56.6%). Based on the correlation of caregivers' characteristics, the clinical validity of this tool was observed to be relatively moderate. The Cronbach's alpha for this tool was estimated to be 65%. The normed fit index (NFI) (0.906), relative fit index (RFI) (0.812), incremental fit index (IFI) (0.948), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) (0.892), comparative fit index (CFI) (0.946), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) (0.049) were the model fit indices for the CarerQol-7D instrument. Conclusion: The findings showed good internal consistency and strong validity of the CarerQol-7D. Thus, we suggest researchers use this instrument to measure the QoL of caregivers for use in economic evaluations.