A Study On The Burden And The Influencing Factors Of Informal Caregivers Of Spinal Cord Injury Patients

Objective:The purpose of the study was to describe the burden station of the spinal cord injuryinformal caregivers through the investigation to the spinal cord injury patients and theirinformal caregivers,and analyze its important influencing factors.Method:A descriptive study was conducted.The210spinal cord injury patients and theirinformal caregivers participated in the study by convenient sampling method. Applying theway of questionnaire investigation. The evaluating instruments include: the self一designed questionnaire,.Index measured in this study include spinal cord injury patients’characters (sociodemographic Status,clinical feature) and informal caregivers’charaeters(sociodemographic status，family income, self-conscious health status，length of timecaring)，the ADL(the Barthel index),ZBI(Zarit Burden Interview),the SSRS(SoCialSuPPortrate scale).Data were analyzed by ANOVA,multi一linear stepwise regressionusing SPSS18.0.According the data analysis to approach the influencing factors of theinformal caregivers’ burden,formulate effective coping style.Results:1.The mean score of ZBI was48.63士12.47,Among all, the caregivers with lowburden was32(15.2%), with middle burden was142(67.7%)，with heavy burden was36（17.1%）. There were burden among all the informal caregivers,the majority of theinformal caregivers perceived middle burden.2.The basic character with spinal cord injury patients and their informal caregivers:thepatiets with spinal cord injury were almost prime of one’s life, mean age were35.35士9.4.Among the informal caregivers,the female caregiver were177（84.3%）.The spouse were75.2%,the parents were18.1%. 3. Statistically significant relations were found between the following conditionfactors and caregiver burden:(1) Patients’course of disease，degree of injury, patients’medical insurance，ADLlevel；(2)caregivers’ gender，age, occupation, the relation betweencaregiver and patient,family income, Multivariate analysis revealed ZBI scores hadsignificant correlation with the Barthel Index,informal caregivers’age, length of timecaring, family income, self一conscious health status.Conclusions:1. The investigation revealed the informal caregivers perceived middle burden.Theinfluencing factors:patients’ course of disease, degree of injury, activity of dailyliving,caregivers’ gender，age, occupation, the relation between caregiver and patient,length of time caring,family income, self一conscious health status.2. Encouraging the neuro-function rehabilitation training to the spinal cord injurypatients,to reduce the incidence rate of complication,to increase the activity of daily livingof spinal cord injury patients,degrade the work intensity and the occupancy of time to theinformal caregivers.To propaganda the knowledge about the spinal cord injury desease tothe patients and their caregivers.,enhancing the recognition about the spinal cord injurydesease, raising the state of the art and the skill of nursing.paying close attention to femaleinformal caregivers,to reduce their burden.Significance:The research provides the clinical data of formulateing the effective measure ofreducing the informal caregivers’ burden,enhancing the life quality of the patients and theinformal caregivers.