Study of the psychometric properties of the French version of the Caregiving System Scale

Abstract

Introduction

While attachment theory has driven decades of empirical research, few studies have focused on the reciprocal behavioral, caregiving, system, defined as the innate motivational system that guides adult responses to people in distress or in need of help. The Caregiving System Scale (CSS) is one of the few tools for measuring sub-optimal caregiving strategies, i.e. hyperactivation and deactivation.

Objective

The aim of this study was to study the psychometric properties of the French version of the CSS and confirm its factor structure. Method: Adult women (N = 201) completed the French version of the CSS online, along with questionnaires to test convergent validity (attachment, empathy, emotion regulation).

Results

Confirmatory factor analyses replicated Colledani et al.'s (2021) three-factor solution: deactivation, anxious hyperactivation, intrusive hyperactivation. Deactivation correlated with avoidant attachment and lower self-reported empathy, while hyperactivation correlated with abandonment anxiety (attachment), regulation difficulties and empathic concern and distress, suggesting good convergent validity. Anxious, but not intrusive, hyperactivation was associated with being a mother and having a helping profession.

Conclusion

This study proposes a 17-item French version of the CSS, organized into three factors that appear to have good fidelity and validity. It also contributes to the conceptualization of the caregiving system by supporting a recent model distinguishing two dimensions of hyperactivation.