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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1891
igaa057.1891
Abstracts
Session 5485 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Caregiver-Centered Communication: A New Tool for Assessment of the Quality of Communication With Family Caregivers
Demiris George  
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”571 571
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Improved communication with caregivers can lead to reduced caregiver anxiety and burden, improved quality of life, and better coping during a stressful time. Even though caregiver communication with the health care team is essential in gerontology, we are lacking standardized instruments to assess quality of communication. We describe the initial development and testing of the Caregiver Centered Communication Questionnaire (CCCQ). The questionnaire has 30 items with 5 subscales: exchange of information, fostering health relationships with team/provider, recognizing and responding to emotions, managing care and decision making. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 115 family caregivers of older adults in home care and hospice. Cronbach’s α for the scale was 0.97. Internal consistencies of subscales were high, ranging from 0.82 to 0.93. Preliminary testing indicates the potential of CCCQ in assessing engagement and quality of communication; further testing is required.