Compare methods

	Caregiver Strain Index	Convoy Model Social Network Mapping
Field	Social Gerontology	Social Gerontology
Family	Latent structure	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1983	1980
Originator	Betsy C. Robinson	Robert L. Kahn & Toni C. Antonucci
Type	Brief yes/no screening index for informal-caregiver strain	Elicitation-and-coding pipeline for personal social networks across the life course
Seminal source	Robinson, B. C. (1983). Validation of a Caregiver Strain Index. Journal of Gerontology, 38(3), 344-348.	Kahn, R. L., & Antonucci, T. C. (1980). Convoys over the life course: Attachment, roles, and social support. In P. B. Baltes & O. G. Brim (Eds.), Life-span development and behavior (Vol. 3, pp. 253-286). Academic Press.
Aliases	CSI, Robinson Caregiver Strain Index, Caregiver Strain Screen, Informal Caregiver Strain Measure	Social Convoy Model, Hierarchical Mapping Technique, Antonucci Convoy Mapping, Convoys Over the Life Course
Related	3	3
Summary	The Caregiver Strain Index (CSI) is a brief, thirteen-item yes/no screening tool that measures the strain experienced by informal caregivers of older adults. Developed and validated by Betsy Robinson in 1983, it was designed to be a quick, easily administered instrument that flags caregivers struggling with the physical, financial, social, and time demands of providing care. Each of the thirteen items is endorsed or not, the endorsements are summed into a score from zero to thirteen, and a score of seven or more signals a caregiver under high strain who may need support. The index emerged from the recognition that family caregiving, while central to long-term care of frail and ill older people, exacts a measurable toll that ought to be screened for in clinical practice. Its brevity and simple scoring made it one of the earliest practical caregiver-screening tools and it remains widely used, including in a later modified version. It complements more detailed instruments like the Zarit Burden Interview by offering rapid identification rather than in-depth assessment.	The convoy model of social relations conceives of each person as moving through life surrounded by a 'convoy' of significant others who provide and receive social support. Introduced by Robert Kahn and Toni Antonucci in 1980, the model frames personal networks as dynamic structures shaped by stable attachments, changing social roles, and life-course transitions. Its signature elicitation tool is the hierarchical mapping technique, in which respondents place the people important to them into three concentric circles around a focal self, with the innermost circle reserved for those so close that life without them is hard to imagine. From this map an analyst codes the convoy's structure, composition, and the support functions its members serve, distinguishing aid, affection, and affirmation. The approach yields a person-centered, qualitative-plus-quantitative portrait of social embeddedness that complements count-based scales. It has become a foundational framework in gerontology and life-span developmental psychology for studying how relationships sustain well-being across aging.