The "Carers' needs assessment for Schizophrenia" - An instrument to assess the needs of relatives caring for schizophrenia patients

Objective For the purpose of service planning, an instrument was developed for the systematic assessment of interventions needed by the caregivers of schizophrenia patients. Method The development of this instrument was based on in-depth interviews and focus groups. It consists of 18 areas describing common problems of schizophrenia caregivers. For each of these problem areas several possible interventions are offered. Concurrent validity, inter-rater and retest reliability were tested among 50 caregivers. Results The kappa values for the inter-rater reliability are predominantly excellent (kappa > 0.75). The values for the retest reliability show a wide range between excellent (kappa > 0.75) and fair agreement (kappa 0.40-0.60). The significant correlations found between summary scores of this new instrument and several sub-scales of the Family Problem Questionnaire support the assumption that the concurrent validity is satisfactory. Conclusions These results suggest that this instrument is both valid and reliable.