Informal carer's knowledge of traumatic brain injury questionnaire: Initial development and validation.
Amena Awadh Bamatraf, Mei Chan Chong, Mazlina Mazlan and 3 others
PMID 33729702WHAT IT FOUND
A 34-item questionnaire for informal carers' knowledge of traumatic brain injury gave stable scores over 2 weeks, but 20 items did not tell high and low scorers apart well.
Use it cautiously until item revision and further testing.
Key findings
01The final questionnaire has 34 yes/no/I don't know items, scored 0 to 34, with a cut-off of 22 for poor knowledge.
02In 40 informal carers, total scores were similar over 2 weeks, with a test-retest coefficient of 0.84.
03Item analysis found 20 poor items, 8 marginal items, 5 very good items, and 1 reasonably good item.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The survey included only 40 informal carers from a teaching hospital rehabilitation department, so it may not apply to other carer groups. Twenty of the 34 items were rated poor for discrimination, and eight more were marginal, so the questionnaire needs item revision. The authors did not perform factor analysis because the sample was small and the data were not normally distributed. Test-retest reliability used Pearson's r, which the authors say may overestimate actual reliability. The cut-off of 22 was taken from the median score of this pilot sample. Participants were carers already attending the physiotherapy gym, so carers who do not attend may be missed. The study reports questionnaire development and initial testing, not an educational intervention outcome.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that this questionnaire improves carer knowledge or patient outcomes. It was only tested as a questionnaire in 40 informal carers, and 20 items were rated poor for discrimination.