Predictors of caregiver burden in Alzheimer’s disease: Caregiver stress, life satisfaction and quality of life levels

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of socio-demographic and health characteristics, caregiving stress, life satisfaction, and quality of life on the caregiving burden in caregivers of Alzheimer’s patient.

Methods: This study is a descriptive-correlational type study. A total of 146 individuals who are caregivers of Alzheimer’s patient constitute the sampling of the study. The Zarit Burden Interview, Caregiver Strain Index, Satisfaction with Life Scale, and SF-36 Quality of Life.

Results: The care burden mean score of caregivers was 61.29±10.3. It was determined that age (β=0.648), caring duration (β=0.429), gender(β=0.672), marital status(β=0.936), educational status(β=0.863), the affinity of the caregiver with the patient(β=0.734), working status(β=0.524), perceived income adequacy(β=0.926), perceived health condition(β=0.682), presence of chronic disease(β=0.529), caregiving stress(β=0.633), life satisfaction score(β=-0.775), physical subscale score (β=-0.824) and mental subscale score(β=-0.489) quality of life had an influence on the caregiving burden (p<0.001). It was determined that the effective determining factors account for 76.4% of the variation in the caregiving burden.

Conclusions: The caregivers of Alzheimer’s disease patients have a high caring burden. In addition to the socio-demographic and health characteristics of caregivers, caregiving stress, life satisfaction, and quality of life are important determinants of the caring burden.