RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF THE JAPANESE VERSION OF THE ZARIT CAREGIVER BURDEN INTERVIEW

Despite a rapid increase in disabled elderly in Japan, the burden of t he caregiver has not been properly assessed due to a lack of objective measurements. Our study was aimed at adapting and validating the Zari t Caregiver Burden Interview (ZBI) in Japan, which is one of the most widely used measurements for caregivers' burden in the United States. Sixty-six caregivers answered the self-administered questionnaire, inv olving the Japanese version of the ZBI and questions regarding their c aregiving situation. Our study demonstrated that the Japanese version of the ZBI had equally as high reliability and validity as the origina l version. The Japanese ZBI had a high test-retest reliability (r = 0. 76) and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.93). The total scor e of the ZBI was highly correlated with the caregivers' score of the C enter for Epidemilogic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) score (r = 0.5 0), as well as a single global rating of burden (r = 0.71). It was als o shown that demographic distribution of the score of the Japanese ver sion had a similar trend to that of the original version. Caregivers w ho looked after patients with behavioral disturbances were found to ha ve a significantly higher ZBI score than those who looked after patien ts without behavioral disturbances, which is consistent with previous findings. It is concluded that the Japanese version of the ZBI can be used to measure feelings of burden of caregivers in the Japanese popul ation and can be used for cross-cultural comparison.