Measuring hope and resilience in carers of people living with dementia: The positive psychology outcome measure for carers (PPOM-C)

Abstract

Objectives Positive psychology outcome measures aim to quantitatively document the character strengths that people use to maintain their wellbeing. Positive aspects of caregiving including the use of character strengths is gaining credence in dementia carer literature but there remain few psychometrically robust tools by which to capture this. The current study evaluated the psychometric properties of a newly developed measure of hope and resilience for family carers of people living with dementia. Methods An online study where family carers (n = 267) completed the newly adapted Positive Psychology Outcome Measure – Carer version (PPOM-C), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale – Depression subscale (HADS-D), The Short Form Health Survey (SF-12), and The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS). Results Psychometric analysis indicated strong properties for the PPOM-C in family carers, with two items dropped to improve the internal consistency. Convergent validity was established, with strong correlations between the hope, resilience, depression symptomology, quality of life and social support. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis indicated acceptable model fit. Discussion The PPOM-C is a psychometrically robust tool that can be recommended for use in large scale psychosocial research. The use of this measure in research and practice will provide a more nuanced understanding of the caregiving role and how to support wellbeing in this population.

Factors associated with subjective burden among informal caregivers of home-dwelling people with dementia: a cross-sectional study

“…Fifth, since subjective burden of care is a complex, subjective, and abstract concept, many factors come into play. For example, positive aspects of caregiving [ 63 , 74 , 75 ] and personality traits [ 76 , 77 ] have received much attention in recent studies. We have not collected data on these factors in our study, and future studies or meta-analyses should investigate how these factors may affect other individual and contextual factors.…”