title: The sense of security in care--Relatives' Evaluation instrument: its development and presentation.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Relatives' sense of security in their family members' palliative home care is important, and a valid and reliable instrument is needed to measure this.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  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.
  
  
  METHODS
  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.
  
  
  RESULTS
  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.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden. Electronic address: barbro.krevers@liu.se.
authors.forename: Barbro
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Krevers
authors.affiliation: Palliative Education & Research Centre and Department of Social and Welfare Studies, Linköping University, Norrköping, Sweden.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Milberg
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006699:Home Care Services; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000379:methods*; D061214:Patient Safety; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011594:Psychometrics; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Sense of security; cancer; family care; instrument development; palliative home care; quality of care; relatives