Abstract: Objective: To develop a Chinese version of the Communication-Burden Scale (COM-B) for family caregivers of aphasia patients after stroke, and to test its reliability and validity. Methods: According to FACIT translation model, the COM-B for family caregivers of aphasia patients after stroke was modified for cultural adaptation. Totally 434 family caregivers of aphasia patients were investigated with the convenient sampling method. Two weeks later, 32 caregivers were randomly selected for test-retest reliability of the scale. Results: The Chinese version of the COM-B included 6 dimensions, 29 items. Exploratory factor analysis extracted a total of six common factors with a cumulative variance contribution of 57.206%. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the chi square degree of freedom ratio was 1.776, the root mean square error of approximation was 0.061, the goodness of fit index was 0.820, and the adjusted goodness of fit index was 0.783. The model fitted well. Cronbach's α coefficient was 0.906. Cronbach's α coefficient of retest reliability was 0.910. Conclusion: The Chinese version of COM-B has good reliability and validity, and it can be used as an effective tool to assess the communication burden of family caregivers of aphasia patients after stroke.

Key words: aphasia; caregiver burden; reliability; validity