Objective: The aim of this study was to adapt the “Affiliated Stigma
Scale” to Turkish for caregivers of people with dementia and determine
its psychometric properties. The scale measures the affiliated stigma
experienced by caregivers of people with dementia.
Method: We assessed the psychometric properties of Affiliated Stigma
Scale in 218 adults who were primary caregivers for their relatives with
dementia. Sociodemographic data was collected and the Affiliated
Stigma Scale, the Caregiver Burden Inventory, and the Beck Depression
Inventory were administered.
Results: The Confirmatory Factor Analysis results did not support the
three-factor structure of the original scale, Exploratory Factor Analysis
(EFA) was performed. EFA, revealed that the Turkish form of the
Affiliated Stigma Scale has a four-factor structure as “other related/
cognition”, “emotion”, “self-related”, and “behavior” with a total of 20
items. The variance explained by four factors constitutes 65.34% of the
total variance. It was positively correlated with depression and caregiver
burden scores. The internal consistency coefficients of the scale range was
between 0.82 and 0.86 and was 0.91 for the total scale.
Conclusion: The Affiliated Stigma Scale is a valid and reliable
measurement tool in Turkey for the caregivers of people with dementia
in assessing affiliated stigma.
Keywords: Affiliated Stigma, Caregiver, Dementia, Reliability, Validity