Objective

Relationship continuity/discontinuity

refers to whether a spouse/partner experiences their current relationship with someone with an acquired brain injury (ABI) as a continuation of their loving pre-injury relationship or as radically changed. The aim of this study was to adapt a questionnaire measure of continuity/discontinuity from dementia research for use in an ABI context and to evaluate the psychometric properties of this adaptation.

Method

The questionnaire was adapted in response to feedback from a focus group of ABI caregivers. Its psychometric properties were then evaluated in two studies involving partners of people with ABI.

Results

The measure showed high internal consistency (alpha = .956 in Study 1 and .963 in Study 2), test-retest reliability (intra-class correlation = .960 in Study 1) and discriminative power (Ferguson’s delta = .975 in Study 1 and .963 in Study 2). Evidence of construct validity was provided by a predicted pattern of correlations with other relationship questionnaires. Exploratory factor analysis suggested that the questionnaire is unidimensional.

Discussion

A valid and reliable quantitative measure of relationship continuity/discontinuity will enable more robust evaluation of suggestions about this construct that have been made in qualitative studies (e.g. that discontinuity is associated with a greater sense of caregiver burden).

中文翻译：

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伯明翰关系连续性测度对后天性脑损伤的发展和心理测评。

目的

关系连续性/不连续性

指配偶/伴侣是否经历了与患有后天性脑损伤（ABI）的人的当前关系，作为他们恋爱前的伤害性关系的延续或从根本上改变。这项研究的目的是改编从痴呆研究中用于连续性/间断性的问卷调查量度，以用于ABI情境，并评估这种改编的心理测量特性。

方法

问卷是根据ABI护理人员焦点小组的反馈进行修改的。然后在两项涉及ABI人伴侣的研究中评估了其心理测量特性。

结果

该度量显示出较高的内部一致性（研究1中的alpha = .956和研究2中的.963），重测重试可靠性（研究1中的类内相关= .960）和判别力（研究1中的弗格森δ= .975）和研究2中的.963）。通过与其他关系调查表的相关性预测模式，可以提供构建体有效性的证据。探索性因素分析表明，问卷是一维的。

讨论区

对关系连续性/不连续性的有效且可靠的定量度量将使定性研究中对这种结构的建议的评估更为可靠（例如，不连续性与更大的照料者负担感相关）。