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The Caregiver Role Identity Scale A Validation Study

Article  in  Research on Social Work Practice · May 2005

DOI: 10.1177/1049731504272779

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RESEARCH ON SOCIAL WORK PRA
10.1177/1049731504272779 CTICE Siebert / IDENTITY SCALE VALIDATION

The Caregiver Role Identity Scale

A Validation Study

Darcy Clay Siebert

Carl F. Siebert
Florida State University
Objective: This article reports the validation of the Caregiver Role Identity Scale, designed to measure the promi-
nence of helping professionals’identity as personal and professional caregivers. The authors developed the measure
to test its application to burnout, depression, and professional impairment among social workers. Method: Data from
a probability sample of 751 practicing social workers were collected in an anonymous survey about social workers’
health and work issues. The authors split the sample to conduct exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.
Results: The exploratory analysis demonstrated good internal consistency reliability, good content validity, and pre-
liminary discriminant validity. The confirmatory analysis demonstrated excellent factorial validity for a revised
scale, retaining reliability and demonstrating convergent validity. Caregiver role identity was related to burnout,
depression, professional impairment, and not seeking help for personal problems. Conclusions: This scale may be a
useful tool for early identification, prevention, and intervention strategies for impairment among social workers.

Keywords: social workers; role identity; scale development; professional impairment

Social services workers report experiencing the same
sorts of personal problems that face their clients (e.g.,
depression, burnout, and high-risk alcohol and other drug
use; Siebert, 2003, 2004, in press-b). It is not surprising
that these social workers also report that these personal
problems can lead to professional impairment (i.e., the
quality of their work is diminished or impaired by their
personal problems). Although social workers are trained
to assist their clients who are experiencing personal prob-
lems, social workers also report not seeking assistance for
their own personal issues (Siebert, in press-a). This phe-
nomenon is not limited to social workers; researchers
report that other caregiving professionals (e.g., nurses,
physicians, and psychologists) also experience these
issues (Centrella, 1994; Deutsch, 1984, 1985; Doyle,
1987; Duquette, Kerouac, Sandhu, & Beaudet, 1994; Fel-
ton, 1998; Good, Thoreson, & Shaughnessy, 1995; Hood
& Duphorne, 1995; Hughes et al., 1992; McAuliffe et al.,
1991; Pope, Tabachnick, & Keith-Spiegel, 1987;
Sherman & Thelen, 1998; Trinkoff, 1998; Trinkoff,
Eaton, & Anthony, 1994; Trinkoff, Storr, & Wall, 1999;
Trinkoff, Zhou, Storr, & Soeken, 2000; Vaillant, 1996;
Vaillant, 1972; Wood, Klein, Cross, Lammers, & Elliott,
1985)
The empirical literature about professional impair-
ment is thin. Studies of helping professionals typically
Authors’ Note: This research was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol
Abuse and Alcoholism.
Research on Social Work Practice, Vol. 15 No. 3, May 2005 204-212
DOI: 10.1177/1049731504272779
© 2005 Sage Publications
204
are epidemiological, describing the prevalence of burnout
or alcohol and drug abuse among physicians or nurses,
along with a few demographic variables (Hughes et al.,
1992; McAuliffe et al., 1991; Trinkoff, 1998; Trinkoff
et al., 1999; Trinkoff et al., 2000). Few studies focus on
help seeking among caregiving professionals, although a
recent study of social workers suggests several barriers to
help seeking, including denial (Siebert, 2003, in press-a).
The conceptual literature from other disciplines supports
this notion, proposing that professional caregivers have
difficulty recognizing and admitting that they have per-
sonal problems (Deutsch, 1985; Kottler & Hazler, 1996;
Nace, 1995b; Thoreson, Nathan, Skorina, & Kilburg,
1983).
In the absence of empirical information, we turned to
the theoretical literature to begin to explain this troubling
situation. Role identity theory (McCall & Simmons,
1978), a middle-range theory with roots in symbolic
interactionism, provides an excellent framework for
understanding professional impairment and profession-
als’ inability to seek treatment for themselves.
Role Identity Theory
Role identity theory posits that behavior is motivated
by how one sees oneself in a variety of personal and pro-
fessional roles. These identities are hierarchically
arranged in order of salience, the most salient having the
most influence on behavior. Role identities are created
through interactions with others in the environment but
superimposed on personal characteristics. Social workers

have overlapping professional and personal identities as
helpers of others, reinforced by the expectations of their
clients, friends, family, and their own expectations of
themselves. These multiple reinforcers of whom they
think they should be could make it difficult for them to ac-
knowledge that they have personal problems similar to
those of their clients—their idealized image of them-
selves would be at odds with the reality of their personal
problems. This would leave them unable or unwilling to
acknowledge and seek help for their personal problems
and thus, vulnerable to professional impairment. The
additional worries about potential practical consequences
of professional impairment—for example, loss of status,
loss of friends and clients, loss of the right to practice—
can contribute to a kind of superdenial about their
personal distress.
Thus, role identity theory well explains impairment in
social workers. It illustrates the issues that are idiosyn-
cratic to the role of professional caregiver, yet it allows for
individual differences. Role identity theory underscores
the importance of self-expectations in concert with oth-
ers’ professional and personal expectations. Most impor-
tantly, it explains the apparent paradox of highly skilled
and well-trained helping professionals being unable to
acknowledge and seek help for their own personal prob-
lems, which can ultimately lead to impaired performance.
However, very few measures of role identity can be
found in the literature, and no measures of caregiver role
identity were available to test this theory’s utility in inves-
tigating burnout, depression, professional impairment,
and help-seeking among social workers. This article
reports the development and validation of the Caregiver
Role Identity Scale, an instrument designed to measure
the strength of helping professionals’identity as both per-
sonal and professional caregivers.
METHOD
The Caregiver Role Identity Scale was developed for
Work and Well Being: A Study of North Carolina Social
Workers (Seibert, 2001). This anonymous survey gath-
ered information about occupational, personal, and
health issues among practicing members of the North
Carolina Chapter of the National Association of Social
Workers (NASW).
The survey instrument development was guided by a
thorough review of the literature and focus groups of
social workers and directors of professional assistance
programs in other disciplines. This was an iterative pro-
cess, including multiple revisions based on feedback
Siebert / IDENTITY SCALE VALIDATION 205
from professional impairment experts and survey
methodologists, pretests, and pilot tests. The final survey
instrument was composed of 84 items about personal
problems (e.g., burnout and depression), professional
impairment (i.e., the professional consequences of per-
sonal problems), personal and occupational variables,
and help seeking. This analysis uses only the data that
were relevant to role identity and impairment.
We mailed questionnaires to 1,000 practicing social
workers who were members of the North Carolina Chap-
ter of NASW. We created the sample by removing inac-
tive, retired, and student members from the most current
membership list of 4,203 members. Using a systematic
probability sampling strategy, we chose every xth name,
beginning with a randomly selected starting point.
We followed survey research methods recommended
by Dillman (2000) for anonymous, cross-sectional sur-
veys, employing data collection strategies to improve the
likelihood of obtaining representative data. Potential
respondents were mailed a letter introducing the study,
and a questionnaire packet followed 3 days later. Included
in this packet was a postcard on which respondents could
check either that they had completed and returned the
questionnaire or that they were not interested in partici-
pating. Because respondents returned the postcard sepa-
rately from the questionnaire, we could track their partici-
pation and retain their anonymity. Until potential
respondents returned the postcard, we mailed them
reminder postcards and replacement questionnaire
packets every 2 weeks throughout the study.
By the completion of the data collection, 822 (82%) of
the social workers had responded to the mailings. How-
ever, 75 of these responded by stating that they did not
wish to participate, 12 potential respondents were not
locatable, and three questionnaires were determined
unusable. Thus, 751 of the 1,000 potential respondents
returned usable questionnaires, producing a survey com-
pletion rate of 75%.
MEASURES
In addition to the development of the Caregiver Role
Identity Scale, we used a number of other measures to
explore the scale’s theoretical and empirical relationship
to distress and impairment among social workers.
Role Identity
We began the development of the measure by gather-
ing data from interdisciplinary focus groups and an
206 RESEARCH ON SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
exhaustive, systematic review of the literature (i.e., a
dozen databases, including Medline, PsychInfo, Social
Services Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, Health and
Psychosocial Instruments, and others, were searched
using multiple keywords, individually and in combina-
tion). We developed a pool of items that operated the key
elements of role identity theory, including the profession-
als’ view of themselves as a helper or caregiver and their
perceptions of others’ view of them as a helper or care-
giver. Potential items were collected and refined in the
iterative process previously described, including a pilot
test with a small convenience sample of social workers.
This process resulted in a scale containing 10 items
that we hypothesized would load onto the two conceptual
factors (self-expectations and the perception of others’
expectations for providing care or help) that make up role
identity. The scale included items such as the following:
“It is easier to care for others than to care for myself,” and
“It is my responsibility to be helpful to my family and
friends” and response options ranged from (1) strongly
disagree to (5) strongly agree (see Table 1 for a complete
list). Responses were summed to create a scale score.
Impairment
We used a self-evaluative, general impairment ques-
tion that has been used in other research (Pope et al.,
1987) for our measure of impairment. We asked respon-
dents to respond on a scale of (1) strongly disagree to (5)
strongly agree to the statement, “I have worked when I
was too distressed to be effective.”
Depressive Symptoms
Our measure of depressive symptoms, the Center for
Epidemiological Studies–Depression (CES-D) measure
(Radloff, 1977), is a popular measure of depressive symp-
toms with well-researched properties that was used in a
similar study of nurses (Trinkoff, 1998). The 20-item
scale’s response options range from (0) rarely or never to
(4) most or all of the time and the scale score is the sum of
all responses. This measure was reliable with our sample
(a = .91).
Burnout
We used a revised version of the emotional exhaustion
subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) as our
burnout measure. Regarded as the heart of burnout, this
subscale is often used as the sole measure (Koeske &
Koeske, 1989, 1993). Previous structural equation mod-
eling analyses of the MBI have provided suggestions for
improvement of the original measure, and several of these
(Byrne, 1991; Yadama & Drake, 1995) have suggested
the elimination of 2 items from the original 9-item scale.
We used this 7-item scale for our study, and it included
items such as, “I feel burned out from my work” and
response options ranging from (0) never to (6) daily. The
score was the sum of the response options, and the mea-
sure was reliable (a = .92).
Help Seeking
We measured help seeking by asking respondents to
answer yes or no as to whether they had ever sought help
for personal issues other than addictive disorders.
Personal Characteristics
We hypothesized that personal characteristics men-
tioned in theoretical and practice literature would be
related to role identity and thus provide preliminary evi-
dence of convergent validity. These characteristics
included having a strong need for approval (Corey &
Corey, 1998), being a perfectionist (Kottler, 1993), feel-
ing overly responsible for clients (Corey & Corey, 1998;
Kottler, 1993), and having difficulty asking for help. We
asked participants to describe themselves and respond
from (1) strongly disagree to (5) to strongly agree.
Demographics
We also asked respondents to reply to standard demo-
graphic questions asking their ethnicity, birth year, mari-
tal status, living situation, sexual identification, personal
income, and whether they lived in rural areas, small
towns, suburbs, or cities.
DATA ANALYSIS STRATEGY
We used Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
(SPSS) 10.0 for the exploratory analysis, and we allowed
missing values to remain missing because few such cases
existed (see Tables 1 through 4), and imputation did not
affect the results.
We compared the first 100 respondents with the last
100 respondents on demographic characteristics and
variables of interest to explore response bias. This strat-
egy tested for effects of repeated mailings and was used to

TABLE 1: Descriptions of Items in Role Identity Scale (N = 376)
Variable M SD
I regularly help family members with 4.08
their problems and concerns
Friends frequently turn to me when they 4.04
have problems or concerns
Work colleagues generally turn to me when 3.90
they have problems or concerns
I have heard I am a natural helper or 4.03
caregiver
I began attending to others at an 3.82
early age
It is my responsibility to be helpful to 3.69
my family and friends
It is easier to care for others than to 3.25
care for myself
It is difficult to tell friends or family that 3.12
I cannot help them with a problem
I would characterize myself as rescuer 2.56
Being a helper or caregiver is an 3.86
important part of who I am
NOTE: Missing values range from 0 to 2.
Response options range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
estimate nonresponse bias (reported elsewhere) because
we were unable to gather data on nonresponders. The
strategy assumes that late responders are comparable to
nonresponders (Trinkoff & Storr, 1997) and that dispari-
ties between the early and late responders suggest poten-
tial nonresponse bias. We used c2 tests for discrete cate-
gorical variables (e.g., ethnicity, marital status, and
sexual identification) and ANOVAs for continuous vari-
ables (e.g., age, income, and years of social work experi-
ence). We also compared the sample demographic char-
acteristics with the national NASW membership to the
degree possible.
Next the sample was split, assigning cases to two
groups by randomly choosing a starting point in the sam-
pling frame and then selecting every other case for mem-
bership in Sample A, with the remaining cases assigned
to Sample B. Sample A was used for an exploratory factor
analysis and to test the scale’s psychometric properties.
Next, Sample B was used to conduct a confirmatory fac-
tor analysis with structural equation modeling using
Lisrel 8.54 to examine factorial validity. Finally, bivariate
associations among the revised role identity scale, other
personal characteristics, burnout, depression, impair-
ment, and help seeking were explored using all the cases
to support the convergent and discriminant validity of the
role identity measure. To adjust for multiple compari-
sons, a Bonferroni Holm correction was employed to
adjust the level of significance used for each correlation
in the matrix.
Siebert / IDENTITY SCALE VALIDATION 207
FINDINGS
Sample
0.92
The North Carolina Chapter of NASW sample was
0.77
demographically representative of the national NASW
0.80 membership. It was 88% White, 8% African American,
and 3% other races and ethnicities. Respondents ranged
0.87
in age from 22 to 73 (M = 44 years) and were primarily
1.05 female (84%) and heterosexual (94%). Most lived with a
spouse or partner (73%) and were married (66%). More
1.00 than half lived in suburbs or cities (58%), whereas the rest
1.16 reported living in a small town or rural area (42%). Per-
sonal income averaged $40,000 per year. Although late
1.18 responders were slightly more likely to report working
1.14
when too distressed to be effective, early and late
0.80 responders were demographically similar.
Descriptions were calculated for the role identity items
(see Table 1). Each item was significantly correlated at
greater than .35 with at least one other item.
Exploratory Analysis
Initially, a principal components factor analysis was
conducted. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sam-
pling adequacy was excellent at .847. Bartlett’s Test of
Sphericity, which tests whether the matrix is different
from the identity matrix, was 1,168 and significant at <
.001 with 45 degrees of freedom. Two methods of evalua-
tion were used to estimate the number of potential fac-
tors—checking the eigenvalue loadings > 1 and looking
for breaks in the descending values, and checking the
Scree plots to identify the bend in the elbow. The inspec-
tion of the loadings showed the largest values as 4.0 and
1.5, and a visual inspection of the Scree plot suggested
two factors as well. Additionally, when considering the
items conceptually, they were designed to fall into two
categories. Given these indications, principal axis factor
analyses next were conducted specifying two factors for
both orthogonal and oblique rotations.
Double loadings and small values were a problem with
the orthogonal rotation. The oblique rotation with two
factors was clearly the best solution, and it makes concep-
tual sense in that this rotation allows the factors to be cor-
related. Conceptually, the first factor includes items that
describe the perception-of-self component of role iden-
tity. The second factor includes the perception-of-how-
others-see-me component of role identity. One item, “I
began attending to the needs of others at an early age,”
had double loadings and conceptually was not a fit with
either of the two factors, and it was eliminated. The
208 RESEARCH ON SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

TABLE 2: Results of a Two-Factor Oblique Factor Analysis of TABLE 3: Descriptions of Variables in the Exploratory
the Role Identity Scale Bivariate Analysis (N = 376)

Item Factor 1 Factor 2 n M SD

1. I characterize myself as a rescuer 0.780 Role identity scale 373 32.50 5.50
2. It is difficult to tell friend or family 0.777 Burnout 362 14.07 9.20
I cannot help Depression 366 28.57 7.93
3. I find it easier to care for others 0.691 Impairment 365 02.75 1.12
than myself Needs approval 370 03.75 0.85
4. It is my responsibility to be helpful to 0.464 Perfectionist 370 03.25 1.05
family and friends Difficulty asking for help 370 03.03 1.11
5. Being a helper or caregiver is who I am 0.457 Responsible for clients 370 03.58 0.93
6. Friends frequently turn to me when they 0.864
have problems Help seeking Frequency Percentage
7. Colleagues generally turn to me when 0.692
they have problems No 116 31.0
8. I have heard from others that I’m a 0.570 Yes 258 69.0
natural caregiver
NOTE: Missing values range from 0 to 14.
9. I regularly help family members 0.558
with problems
Variance explained (factors correlated
so no total variance) 2.65 2.53
possible violation of the assumptions of bivariate analy-
NOTE: Correlation = .47; Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling ac- sis. The statistics are presented in Table 3.
curacy = .830; Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity = 1,030, df =36, p < .001. Fac-
tor loadings < .25 are not reported. Content validity was established by a thorough review
of the scale items by experts in the substantive area and in
measurement, all of whom agreed that the items were
analysis was conducted again with this item removed, and grounded in the theoretical and conceptual literature.
the results are described in Table 2. Additionally, preliminary discriminant validity was
Next, an internal consistency reliability analysis was established, as the role identity scale score was not signif-
conducted on the role identity scale, and its alpha was icantly related to variables that conceptually should not
good at .81. The variable was normally distributed with a be related—for example, gender, sexual orientation, and
range of 15 to 45, a mean of 32.5, and a standard deviation place of residence.
of 5.5. Given these results, it was reasonable to include
this 9-item measure in the data analysis. A single scale Confirmatory Analysis
was retained for use in the data analyses because the the-
ory posits that both self-expectations and others’expecta- The predicted measurement model resulting from the
tions are integral to role identity, and the factor analysis exploratory factor analysis, with nine observed and two
supported the theoretical and conceptual coherence of the latent variables, was entered into LISREL 8.54. Using
measure. The two factors were correlated (r = .47, p < split Sample B, five cases were deleted using a case-wise
.00001). deletion method for missing data, adjusting the sample
Descriptive statistics were calculated for all the vari- size to 370. A case analysis of the data did not identify any
ables in the analysis, and the data were analyzed for problematic outliers or potential problems with serious

TABLE 4: Correlations Between Caregiver Role Identity Scale and Variables Hypothesized to be Related (N = 751)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. Role identity
2. Burnout .18****
3. Depression .23**** .53****
4. Help Seeking¤ –.11* .06 .15***
5. Impairment .21**** .43**** .36**** .07
6. Needs approval .33**** .14** .22**** .13*** .13**
7. Perfectionist .24**** .19**** .16*** .03 .13** .31****
8. Difficulty asking for help .28**** .27**** .23**** .07 .22**** .23**** .33****
9. Responsible for clients .35**** .22**** .18**** –.04 .14** .34**** .26**** .20****
NOTE: Missing values = 6 to 34.
*p < .01. **p < .001. ***p < .0001. ****p <.00001.

Figure 1: Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Caregiver Role Identity Scale (n = 370)
violations of assumptions of multivariate normality. The
maximum likelihood method was used to estimate the
level of data fit to the model. Consistent with the explor-
atory factor analysis, the latent constructs were allowed to
correlate. The results included a c2 value of 90.61, df = 26
(p < .0001) that rejects the hypothesis that the model is
correct, and a root mean square error of approximation
(RMSEA) of .082 that indicated a poor model fit to the
data.
The data suggested a potential improvement in c2 if the
error terms for three of the observed variables—Item 4 (“I
have heard from others that I am a natural caregiver”),
Item 6 (“It is my responsibility to be helpful to family and
friends”), and Item 8 (“It is difficult to tell friends or fam-
ily I cannot help”)—were correlated with the error term
for Item 10 (“Being a helper or caregiver is who I am”).
This empirical evidence prompted a reconsideration of
the conceptual and theoretical relationships among these
variables. On reflection, Item 10 actually appeared to be a
proxy for the purpose of the scale—to determine level of
caregiver identity—rather than measuring an aspect of
that identity, as is required for good scale items. As such,
it was inappropriate for inclusion with the other items,
and it made logical sense that the error term for Item 10
was correlated with the error terms of the Items 4, 6, and
8. The best decision in this circumstance was to remove
Item 10 from the predicted measurement model, resulting
in an 8-item scale.
The maximum likelihood method was again used to
estimate the level of data fit to the revised model. The
results offered a c2 value of 52.44, df = 19 (p = .00006)
Siebert / IDENTITY SCALE VALIDATION 209
and a RMSEA value of .069. Additional fit index values
included the Nonnormed Fit Index (NNFI = .95), the
Normed Fit Index (NFI = .95), the Comparative Fit Index
(CFI = .97), the Goodness Of Fit Index (GFI = .97), and
standardized root mean square residual (RMR = .058).
These all indicated a good model fit that had potential for
additional improvement.
The data suggested that correlating the error terms for
Item 2 (“Friends generally turn to me when they have
problems”) and Item 3 (“Colleagues generally turn to me
when they have problems”) would improve the model fit.
Similarly, the model fit would be improved by correlating
the error terms for Item 6 (“It is my responsibility to be
helpful to my family and friends”) and Item 1 (“I charac-
terize myself as a rescuer”). Given the potential overlap
between each of these sets of variables, it makes sound
conceptual sense to correlate these pairs of error terms.
Thus, the final model (see Figure 1) includes eight
observed variables and two latent variables, correlating
the error terms of Item 2 to Item 3 and the error terms of
Item 6 to Item 1. This model resulted in a c2 value of
25.40, df = 17 (p = .086), suggesting that the overall
model is a good fit to the data. Additional fit indices all
suggested a very good model fit: RMSEA = .037 and
RMR = .039 (below the .05 criteria); NFI = .98, NNFI =
.99, CFI = .99, and GFI = .98 (all above the .95 criteria);
and Expected Cross-Validation Index = .17 and Akaike
Information Criterion = 63.40, both below their saturated
values of .20 and 72.00, respectively. In addition, the larg-
est standardized covariance residual was improved from
4.71 for the original model to 3.56 for the final model.
210 RESEARCH ON SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
Thus, the adjustments for the original model resulted in
an even better model fit.
Finally, because no other measures of caregiver role
identity exist for comparison purposes, convergent valid-
ity was examined by conducting a correlation analysis of
all the cases that included the revised 8-item role identity
scale and variables that were hypothesized to be related.
The helper or caregiver role identity was associated with
all potentially related variables using the Bonferroni
Holm correction for multiple comparisons (see Table 4).
Another reliability analysis of the revised 8-item scale
was also conducted, and its reliability remained good,
although it dropped from .81 for the 9-item scale to .78 for
the 8-item scale.
DISCUSSION AND APPLICATION TO
SOCIAL WORK RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
It is useful to consider certain conceptual and method-
ological limitations of the study before discussing the
findings. Role identity theory is limited in that it does not
offer precise, easily measurable definitions of the con-
cepts and thus has not been frequently operationalized for
research. The study achieved an impressive 75% usable
response rate that resulted in a representative sample, but
because the sample was limited to members of the North
Carolina Chapter of NASW, the findings cannot be gener-
alized to all social workers. Furthermore, all the measures
were self-reported, and the measures used to examine
convergent validity (i.e., depressive symptoms, burnout,
help seeking, impairment) asked for sensitive informa-
tion, so social desirability bias is possible, if not probable.
Although the response rate was excellent and there was
very little item nonresponse, it is possible that those who
did not respond were somehow different from those who
did.
It also should be noted that although the Caregiver
Role Identity Scale scores were normally distributed, the
disstribution had a slight negative skew that did not
unduly influence the results. Furthermore, the correla-
tions with the scale score were generally moderate, as
would be expected, as the variables in the analysis have a
complex etiology (e.g., depression may have a large bio-
logical component, and much of burnout’s variance is
likely explained by working conditions) that would vary
among respondents.
Considering these potential limitations, the findings of
the present study are quite promising and support role
identity theory in a number of ways. Role identity theory
posits that individuals occupy an assortment of roles,
prioritized by salience and the level of support received
for each specific role. Social workers formulate identities
of themselves as caregivers, often idealized, that develop
through an iterative process from their assessments of (a)
their own performance as a personal and professional
caregiver and (b) others’ expectations of them in that role
(McCall & Simmons, 1978). The exploratory factor
analysis of the measure clearly supports this notion
because the factors fell cleanly along these two facets of
role identity—how the respondents saw themselves and
how the respondents perceived others’ perceptions of
them. The confirmatory analysis empirically supported
the factor structure as well.
The scale exhibited additional sound psychometric
properties—reliability, face validity, and discriminant
validity. Of special interest are the findings of the conver-
gent validity analysis because they support not only the
measure but also its theoretical application in that respon-
dents scoring higher on the identity measure also reported
higher levels of depressive symptoms, burnout, and pro-
fessional impairment. It makes intuitive sense that high
scores on being perfectionists, needing approval, and
feeling highly responsible for clients leave respondents
vulnerable to burnout, depression, and impairment, but
these qualities were also related to higher scores on care-
giver role identity. Of practical importance is that those
scoring higher on caregiver identity not only reported
having greater difficulty asking for help, but they also
reported actually seeking help less frequently than those
with lower role identity scores.
Following the theory, it is likely that perfectionistic,
responsible social workers have high expectations for
their role performance, perceiving themselves as helpers,
caregivers, and problem solvers, both personally and pro-
fessionally. Despite this idealized image (and, in part,
because of it), social workers are vulnerable to their own
distress, as evidenced by the findings of this and other
analyses (Siebert, 2003, 2004, in press-b). When this is
coupled with a reluctance to seek help (Siebert, in press-a),
it is not surprising that social workers’ professional prac-
tice is negatively influenced, creating situations in which
clients might receive less than effective services.
These findings have clear implications for the preven-
tion of distress and impairment among social workers.
The literature suggests that a large proportion of social
workers and other caregiving professionals are attracted
to the profession because they occupied caretaking roles
in their families of origin (DiCaccavo, 2002; O’Conner,
2001; Vincent, 1996). These professionals and others
with high scores on the caregiver role identity scale would
benefit from early prevention intervention—ideally in

their early training in schools of social work—before the
rigors and stress of social work practice contribute to the
depression or burnout that can result in impaired practice
(Siebert, 2001, 2004, in press-b). Identifying social work
students with prominent caregiver role identities and pre-
senting curriculum on self-awareness and self-care, with
a focus on personal distress and professional impairment,
might make a real difference to well-being of vulnerable
professionals and their clients. Normalizing the experi-
ence of burnout or depression, for example, and the need
to seek help for oneself could be extraordinarily helpful
for professionals who might otherwise tend to deny that
they need assistance. Course content needs to be
developed and tested empirically with these issues in
mind.
An appreciation for the importance of caregiver role
identity could also assist treatment providers in the for-
mulation of assessments and interventions for distressed
and impaired social workers once they have been identi-
fied. For professionals in need of treatment who score
high on caregiver role identity, behavior change could be
targeted through the lens of idealized self-expectations
and perceptions, improving the likelihood of effective
intervention with those professionals who are uncomfort-
able seeking help for themselves.
Although recent research has confirmed that profes-
sional impairment is an issue for the social work disci-
pline, much more research is required to develop effective
early identification, prevention, assessment, and inter-
vention strategies that will target the idiosyncratic needs
of social work professionals. Conducting this research
and developing measures like the caregiver role identity
scale will begin to address a concern that the social work
profession has long neglected—the health and well-being
of our professionals and, by extension, the well-being of
our clients.
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