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® Observational Tool (COT™) 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.