Background:

Health professionals are responsible for training informal caregivers to provide home care and therefore it is important to assess caregivers’ skills.

Objective:

To explore the psychometric properties of a questionnaire for assessing informal caregivers’ skills.

Methodology:

Methodological study involving 216 informal caregivers from a city in the southern region of Brazil. Structural construct validity was examined through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability was assessed by evaluating internal consistency.

Results:

The exploratory factor analysis revealed four factors corresponding to the following skills: Psychomotor (Factor 1), Cognitive (Factor 2), Emotional (Factor 3), and Relational (Factor 4). The confirmatory factor analysis revealed satisfactory results for all fit indices and internal consistency of α = 0.82.

Conclusion:

The questionnaire shows evidence of reliability and validity and can be used to assess informal caregivers’ skills in home settings.

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