Caregiver Wellness Questionnaire: Initial Psychometric Evaluation of a Multidimensional Measure of Well-Being Among a Mixed U.S. Caregiver Sample

Background/Objectives: The Caregiver Wellness: U-Model Questionnaire offers a self-guided approach to assessing caregiver well-being and provides resources designed to empower caregivers to embrace self-care. The instrument consists of 27 items organized into nine wellness dimensions: occupational wellness, physical wellness, psychological wellness, intellectual wellness, social wellness, resilience, empowerment, spiritual wellness, and financial wellness. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Caregiver Wellness: U-Model Questionnaire for measuring the perceived well-being of caregivers. Methods: This secondary analysis used a convenience sample of 225 participants who completed the questionnaire between 2022 and 2025; family caregivers and frontline direct care workers could not be distinguished within the dataset. Analyses of the CWQ included internal reliability consistency, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and subscale correlations for model and subscale refinement. Results: McDonald’s omega (0.828) indicated high reliability of the CWQ. The EFA revealed six factors retained on Eigenvalues > 1 and visual inspection of a scree plot. Subscale correlations showed evidence of convergent validity. The original nine subscale questionnaire items were mapped to the corresponding six factors from the structure matrix. The resulting six subscales are Connected Well-Being, Personal Agency, Empowered Adaptive Capacity, Functional Capacity, Resilient Self-Regulation, and Occupational Wellness. Conclusions: The findings of this study and the revised six-factor Caregiver Wellness model demonstrate an improved understanding of caregiver wellness as an interplay of relational connectedness, personal empowerment, adaptive resilience, functional resources, self-regulatory processes, and occupational fulfillment.