Social capital and care in the community: a methodological study

Rationale, aims and objectives: Healthcare reform systems require that individuals with long term and complex health problems to be cared at home by their families making informal caregivers a critical national healthcare resource. Caregiver support may be better understood in the context of the social capital framework that has the capacity to support health and wellbeing for the patient and caregiver through a combination of connections, informal exchange, informal non-family relations and resource acquisition.The aim of the study was to assess the validity and reliability of the Social Capital Questionnaire (SCQ-Greek) amongst Greek-speaking community dwellers in Cyprus.Methods: The SCQ was administered to a total sample of 225 Greek Cypriot community dwellers consisting of 2groups - a group of family caregivers of patients with dementia (n=76) and a neighborhood-matched control group (n= 149). Exploratory factor analysis using Varimax rotation was performed and items with factor loadings greater than 0.4 were retained. Cronbach’s coefficient of internal consistency was calculated for the overall scale and sub-scales. The association of Social Capital and its components (factors) with the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants were investigated in regression analyses.Results: A 6-factor solution with 28 items accounted for 48.3% of the variance. The item-total correlation ranged from 0.20 to 0.49 indicating that each of them contributed to the total score. For the overall instrument, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.83 and ranged between 0.55 and 0.82 for the individual factors. Generally, younger individuals, those with higher educational attainment and higher income tended to report higher levels of social capital.Conclusions: Findings demonstrate that a 28-item version of the SCQ is a reliable and valid tool for the assessment of perceptions of social capital among Greek-Cypriot community residents which included a sample of caregivers of the chronically ill. A tool to measure the perceptions of social capital is important for the understanding and utilizing the broader resources required for the care of the chronically ill in the community