The sense of security in care--Relatives' Evaluation instrument: its development and presentation.

Abstract

Relatives' sense of security in their family members' palliative home care is important, and a valid and reliable instrument is needed to measure this. The aim of this article is to report the development, structure, and psychometric properties of a new instrument, the Sense of Security in Care--Relatives' Evaluation (SEC-R), in palliative home care. Instrument development was based on a previous study and review of the literature; 213 relatives (55% women) of patients in palliative home care were recruited (response rate 73%) and participated in a structured interview based on a questionnaire. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify subscales. The construction was tested in correlation with other scales and questions representing concepts expected to be related to sense of security in care. The PCA resulted in three subscales, namely care interaction, mastery and patient situation, which had an explained variance of 53%. Internal consistency of the subscales ranged from 0.76 to 0.78. The final instrument comprises 17 items. The scales were associated with the quality-of-care process and the relatives' situation, perceived health, quality of life, stress, general sense of security, and general sense of security in care. The SEC-R provides a three-component assessment of palliative home care settings using valid and reliable scales associated with other concepts. The SEC-R is a manageable means of assessment that may contribute to quality-of-care measures and to further research on relatives' sense of security in care.