Methods
Sample and data collection
This study is a psychometric study. A sample of 204 people were selected based on a purposive and voluntary sampling method from families with improved members of Covid 19 living in Sirjan. A list of coronary heart disease patients was received from the relevant hospital and their families were contacted, and a questionnaire prepared online was provided to a family member who was the patient’s primary caregiver. The term caregivers refer to the family members such as Spouse, Father/Mother, Son/daughter, son/daughter in law, sibling, grandson/granddaughter, and everyone who provides care to the patient and lives in the same house.
Criteria for inclusion in the study were adult caregivers whose family member received a diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome and improved. The caregivers were over 18 years old and had the minimum literacy to respond to the questionnaire. They participated in the study voluntarily with satisfaction and cooperation. Criteria for exclusion were the patients who lived alone and used a nurse for home care, and participants who did not complete the questionnaire and did not wish to participate in the study. After informing and explaining how to respond to the measuring tools and the confidentiality of personal information, the scale was filled out online and through online sources and was returned to the researcher to ensure their completeness and accuracy after completion. First, some questions were asked about gender, age, education, and relations to the patients.
Instruments
The Family disease Management Scale was used to collect data. The Scale was developed by Rodriguez, Serrano, and Sanchez in 2015 and consists of 30 items, each ranked in a Likert (rarely, sometimes, and always) range, focusing on three dimensions: family support, family normalization, and family involvement. Further, based on the opinion of experts in this field, it was used to check the clarity (use of simple and understandable words) and avoid using technical and specialized words.
The back-translation was used to translate the questionnaire from English to Persian. Then, we translated the questionnaire back into the original language, and finally compared the original version with translated text. The participants completed the questionnaire on social media from November 21, 2020 to April 19, 2021.