The Caregiver Grief Scale: Development, Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and Validation

Objective: Pre-death grief is among the most debilitating aspects of dementia caregiving and can have adverse impacts on caregivers’ physical and mental health. The specific assessment of grief is therefore an important prerequisite for both clinical and research settings. The present study aimed to build upon previous research and develop a scale for the measurement of grief in dementia caregivers.

Methods: An initial pool of 21 items was created through both the selection of appropriate items from existing instruments and the development of new items. 229 caregivers (Mage = 63.8 years ±10.5) completed the scale along with measures of construct validity. The sample was randomly split in half and exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the first data set. The established factor structure was then subjected to confirmatory factor analysis on the second data set.

Results: Convincing goodness-of-fit indices emerged for a four-factor model, with factors reflecting different aspects of caregiver grief (i.e., Emotional Pain, Relational Loss, Absolute Loss, and Acceptance of Loss). The total scale and subscales yielded high internal consistency reliabilities (Cronbach’s α = .67–.89) and construct validity coefficients.

Conclusions: The Caregiver Grief Scale is now available for use in clinical and research settings to aid therapists and researchers in assessing the burden caregivers experience due to grief and evaluating the effects of grief-specific interventions.