Short Self-Assessment Questionnaire for Parents with Young Children on Caregiver Strengths and Strains: Development and Psychometric Properties of the Balance Scale

To evaluate reliability and validity of the Balance Scale to measure the (im)balance between caregiver strengths and strains from parents’ perspectives, and identifying parents who struggle with balancing the care and upbringing of their children. Literature and focus groups with parents were used to develop a short questionnaire called the Balance Scale. The final Balance Scale was determined after testing through a think-aloud procedure. The internal consistency and criterion validity of the Balance Scale were evaluated using a cross-sectional design. The new Balance Scale and the validated Structured Problem Analyses Raising Kids (SPARK) were offered to parents of children at the age of 5 years during preventive youth health care visits. Five themes - experience in parenting, support, relationship and agreement with partner, complicating family factors and adaptability - and eight questions were included in the Balance Scale, which took approximately two minutes to fill out and showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha=0.722). Both a Balance Scale and a SPARK were available from 1226 parents. The Balance Scale was negatively correlated to the SPARK assessments for parents’ concerns (correlation coefficient=-0.28, p