Analysis Of Burden On Caregivers Of Stroke Patients In Community And Their Family And Relevant Influence Factors

ObjectiveTo investigate the basic characteristics of patients with stroke in community and their primary caregivers, to comprehensively assess the burden and influence the stroke incidents have on their primary caregivers and their family, to explore the influence factors of the burden level of their primary caregivers and their family, to find effective ways of elevating life quality of their primary caregivers, lessening the burden of their family,and to provide scientific evidence for integrative intervention to their family and society.MethodsUsing methods of Epidemiological investigation at the scene,163 primary caregivers of patients with stroke from 4 communities in Wuhan were interviewed using questionnaires including Family Burden Scale of Diseases (FBS), Ability of Daily Living Scale (ADL), caregiver Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS), Zarit Caregiver Burden Interview (ZBI) and self-designed general information questionnaire for patients and caregivers. Collected data was input by Epidata 3.02 and analyzed by SAS 9.1.3 statistical package.Results1. In 163 caregivers of patients with stroke, there were 63 men and 100 women with a mean age of 55.99±11.92 years. 85.34% of them were patients'spouses, sons or daughters, and 36.81% took care of patients, mean caregiving time were 6.06 years.2. As Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) shows, in 163 caregivers, there were 79 cases (48.47%) with low social support, 81 cases (49.69%) with common support, and only 3 cases (1.84%) with high support.3. According to Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), the assessment after testing and measuring 163 primary caregivers of patients with stroke manifest 147 cases (90.18%) undertook various degree of care burden,16 caregivers (9.82%) with no care burden, 100 cases (61.35%) with light burden, 41 cases (25.15%) with medium burden, and 6 cases (3.68%) with heavy burden.4. Positive answers rates in various dimensionalities of Family Burden Scales (FBS) were respectively: 62.58% of family economic burden, 50.92% of family activity of daily living, 54.60% of family entertainment, 42.33% of family relations, 23.31% of physical health of family members and 22.09% of mental health of family members. Stroke patients'family economic burden, family activity of daily living and family entertainment had a higher positive answer rate, all of which were over 50%.5. Analysis results for influencing factors of burden on stroke patients'caregivers demonstrated the following five factorsplay a significant role for burden score: degree of educational, existence of other caregivers, medical costs at their own expense, patients'ability of daily living and caregiver's negative coping style. After analyzing family burden of stroke patients, it was found that factors including patients'age, sex, degree of educational, number of family members, their understanding of disease, way of paying medical costs, family income of patients and ability of daily living had different impacts on family economic burden, family activity of daily living, familyrecreational activities, family relations, physical and mental health of family members.Conclusions1. Rehabilitation nursing of stroke patients was accomplished by family members because community care system has still not been constructed perfectly in our country. Most of caregivers have the following characteristics: spouse or children of patients, older in age, longer care period and suffering from the pressure of long-term nursing to patients. But the cargivers of stroke patients were paied little attention to by society and had lower social support.2. The primary caregivers of stroke patients and their family were generally affected by disease and suffered form burden at different extent. The burden level was not only related to the direct result of disease but also influenced by many factors, such as the coping style, social support, economic status etc.3. The primary caregivers of stroke patients and their family should be paid proactive attention to. Community intervention can, by all kinds of patterns and styles, enhance and consummate the social supportive network for primary caregivers of stroke patients and their family, help and encourage them copy at a proactive attitude and reduce burden level.