The CARES® Observational Tool: A valid and reliable instrument to assess person-centered dementia care

The goal of the current study was to develop a valid and reliable tool to measure whether person-centered care is delivered by direct care workers to persons with dementia. Face validity was initially established through multiple revisions of the CARES (R) Observational Tool (COT (TM)) by members of the study team. Afterward, content validity of the COT was established by piloting the tool on 31 observations across 7 nursing homes and review by an interdisciplinary panel of nine scientific experts. The final 16-item version of the COT was then tested for inter-rater reliability by 5 reviewers across 5 standardized dementia care videos. An intra-class coefficient of all possible Kappa coefficients resulted in an ICC of .77. The brief and easy-to-use COT has potential to assess person-centered care interactions between direct care workers and persons with dementia. (C) 2013 Published by Mosby, Inc.