The factors affecting the burden of care of informal caregivers of the elderly in Tehran

authors:

avatar Hosein Rohani 1 , avatar Ahmad Ali Eslami 1 , avatar Tohid Jafari-Koshki 2 , avatar Mehdi Raei 3 , * , avatar Hashem Abrishamkarzadeh 4 , avatar Reza Mirshahi 5 , avatar Arsalan Ghaderi 6

Dept. of Health Education and Promotion, Faculty of Health, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
Dept. of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Faculty of Health, Sabzevar University of Medical Sciences, Sabzevar, Iran
Dept. of Basic Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran
Dept. of Orthopedics, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Farabi Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Dept. of Health Education and Promotion, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran

how to cite: Rohani H, Eslami A A, Jafari-Koshki T, Raei M, Abrishamkarzadeh H, et al. The factors affecting the burden of care of informal caregivers of the elderly in Tehran. J Kermanshah Univ Med Sci. 2015;18(12):e70731. https://doi.org/10.22110/jkums.v18i12.2096.

Abstract

Background: Rapid growth of the elderly population followed by an increase in long term care will lead to a rise in the health costs of the elderly and the healthcare burden of their caregivers. This study was carried out to examine the factors affecting the burden of care for informal caregivers in order to design better interventional programs and to reduce this burden and unwanted consequences.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in retirement associations of Tehran in 2012. The study population included 200 elderly and 200 caregivers. The instruments for data collection included two questionnaires about the elderly and their caregivers that were completed in a face-to-face interview. The data were analyzed by SPSS-16 software using multiple linear regression.
Results: About 60% of the elderly and 34% of caregivers were female. Burden of care was low in 70%, moderate in 11.5%, and high in 18.5% of caregivers. Female caregivers were suffering 1.42 unit more burden of care than male caregivers (P= 0.027). Also, there was a significant association between the burden of care of untrained caregivers and instrumental activities of the daily living of the elderly (P< 0.001), daily activity of the elderly (P<0.001) and adequacy of wage (= 0.001).
Conclusion: According to the results, being a female caregiver, daily physical activity of the elderly, instrumental activities of the daily living of the elderly, and adequacy of the wage were the most important factors in increasing the burden of care for caregivers of the elderly.

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