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Use of Primary Caretakers as Proxies to Measure the Health Care Needs of Patients with AIDS
Author(s) -
Berk Ronald A.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
public health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.471
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1525-1446
pISSN - 0737-1209
DOI - 10.1111/j.1525-1446.1995.tb00132.x
Subject(s) - psychosocial , proxy (statistics) , statistic , scale (ratio) , medicine , social support , health care , test (biology) , psychometrics , wilcoxon signed rank test , family medicine , psychology , gerontology , clinical psychology , psychiatry , social psychology , mann–whitney u test , statistics , paleontology , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , economics , biology , economic growth
This study evaluated the validity of patient‐proxy responses to the Healthcare Needs Scale for Patients with HIV/AIDS. This scale measures environmental and psychosocial support, financial resources, health behaviors, social support, and health management. A sample of 35 patients with HIV/AIDS and their primary caretakers was selected from a hospital inpatient AIDS unit in Baltimore, Maryland, between 1990 and 1992. The significance of discrepancies between the patient and caretaker responses was tested with Wilcoxon's matched pairs/signed ranks test. None of the 19 scale items exhibited a significant Z statistic. It was concluded that the primary caretakers of PWAs can serve as informed proxies and provide accurate information on the patients' healthcare needs.