Group Music Therapy Intervention With Informal Carers of Elderly Dependents (MUSIC CARES)

For evaluating Health-Related Quality of Life is going to use the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey questionnaire (SF-36). The SF-36 measures eight scales: physical functioning (PF), role physical (RP), bodily pain (BP), general health (GH), vitality (VT), social functioning (SF), role emotional (RE), and mental health (MH). Component analyses showed that there are two distinct concepts measured by the SF-36: a physical dimension, represented by the Physical Component Summary (PCS), and a mental dimension, represented by the Mental Component Summary (MCS). The correct calculation of SF-36 summary measures PCS and MCS requires the use of special algorithms. The scores obtained in this questionnaire range from 0 to 100, with 0 being the worst state of health and 100 the best state of health for the dimension assessed. Thus, the higher the score obtained, the better the quality of life of the person assessed.

The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) is a commonly used measure of trait and state anxiety that also is often used in research as an indicator of caregiver distress. It has 20 items for assessing trait anxiety and 20 for state anxiety, on a 4-point Likert scale. Scores range from 20 to 80, with higher scores correlating with greater anxiety

Assessed with the BDI-II that contains 21 items and identifies symptoms and attitudes associated with depression. Each item is evaluated on a severity scale ranging from 0-3, with a total score ranging from 0-63. Higher total scores indicate more severe depressive symptoms

To assess the burden, it is using the Burden Zarit Interview that is a self-report instrument that assesses the level of caregiver burden. It consists of 22 items that are assessed using a Likert-type scale, where higher scores indicate greater burnout.

Coping strategies are evaluated with the COPE-28 that is the brief version inventory of 28 items and 14 subscales that is applied on an ordinal Likert-type scale with four response alternatives (from 0 to 3) between "I never do this" and "I always do this", with intermediate scores.

The outcome spirituality is assessed with the WHOQOL-SRPB,a 32-item instrument that measures spiritual, religious, and personal beliefs in 8 dimensions. Each item has a 5-point Likert format for responses from 1 ("not at all") to 5 ("completely"). The WHOQOL-SRPB total score ranges from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating higher spirituality.