Reconsidering the Caregiving Stress Appraisal scale: validation and examination of its association with items used for assessing long-term care insurance in Japan.

The Caregiving Stress Appraisal (CSA) scale is a simple scale for measuring family caregiver stress. However, information on its validity and association with new social welfare systems in Japan is inadequate. The purpose of the present study is to examine the criterion validity of the CSA and to explore its association with the variables used for assessing long-term care insurance in Japan. In the present study, 219 family caregivers completed a self-administered questionnaire. Of these, 50 and 202 caregivers were used for the analysis of the criterion validity and construct validity, respectively. The CSA, the Japanese version of the Zarit Burden Interview (J-ZBI), the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D), and the items used for assessing long-term care insurance in Japan were used for the analyses. The results revealed that the CSA had significant correlations with the J-ZBI and the CES-D. Despite the small sample size, the CSA had significant correlations with the items used for assessing long-term care insurance in Japan. These results suggest sufficient criterion and construct validity of the CSA for the future study.