Development of Japanese Version of Picot\u27s Caregivers\u27 Reward Scale and Comparison Analysis with Positive Gain Scale for Professional Caregivers

The positive gain during caregiving by professional workers for the elderly in Japan was confirmed in our previous research. To investigate the structural factors of caregivers\u27 positive gain, precise analysis on the scale for positive gain is needed. The purposes of this study are 1) to examine the reliability and validity of our original scale for positive gain by professional care workers, 2) to compare the contents and structure of the scale which was developed for family caregivers. After the confirmation of high reliability and good sampling property of our original scale, a factor analysis was administered. This analysis revealed that the scale included three factors, i.e. working motivation, intrinsic positive gain and extrinsic positive gain. To compare the structural factors and to apply to Japanese family caregivers, Japanese version of the scale for family caregivers by Picot (1995) was developed through translation to Japanese and back translation to English. According to the article by Picot (1985), the scale for family caregivers included two factors, i.e. inner reward and outer reward. Taking into account of the difference of target subjects, the main structure was similar in both scales. In contrast, the contents of scale items varied between two scales. The scale for professional caregivers focused on the experiences of positive gain, and the scale for family caregivers included expanded items including social support, economical support and human relations. The reliability and validity of our Japanese version of family caregivers reward scale will be reported precisely in the other article