A Study on Validity and Reliability of the Turkish Version of the Perceived Family Burden Scale

Objective: The present study investigated psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Perceived Family Burden Scale (PFBS). Methods: The study included 72 patients treated at a university psychiatry clinic with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and their 72 caregivers. While the current clinical conditions of the patients were assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), their caregivers were evaluated by the PFBS in addition to the Emotion Expression Scale (EES) and the Family Assessment Scale (FAS). Results: Cronbach's Alpha coefficient for internal consistency of the PFBS was calculated as 0.916. Corrected item-total correlation coefficients were over 0.30 for all but one item. The PFBS-Turkish version was found to be highly correlated with the EES and moderately or highly with all the FAS sub-scales. There was also a high-level correlation between the caregivers' PFBS scores and their patients' PANSS scores. Moreover, when the patients were divided into two groups as remitted or non-remitted using the PANSS scores, the PFBS scores of the remitted patients' caregivers were found to be significantly lower than those of the non-remitted patients' caregivers. Conclusion: The impressive internal consistency of the PFBS-Turkish version is supportive not only for reliability, but also for the construct validity of the scale. Moderate to high correlations of the PFBS with the EES and the FAS suggest that the scale has convergent validity. Discriminant validity of the scale was supported by significant difference between the groups of remitted patients' and non-remitted patients' caregivers in terms of PFBS scores. In conclusion, The PFBS-Turkish version appears to be a valid and reliable tool that could be used for clinical and research purposes to evaluate the degree of burden experienced by relatives of schizophrenic patients. (Archives of Neuropsychiatry 2011; 48: 53-8)