Caregiver burden and health promotion

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Abstract

Few of the studies describing caregiver stress and burden have focused on the effects of caregiving on the ability of the caregiver to attend to his or her own health needs. Therefore, the major purpose of this study was to investigate whether the perception of burden is related to the health-promoting behaviors of caregivers of the elderly. One hundred twenty-one predominantly female caregivers, mean age 61.1 years, S.D.=13.4, completed questionnaires measuring demographic and health-related factors, the Objective and Subjective Burden Scales, and the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile. Findings suggest that those perceiving lower subjective burden practice more health-promoting behaviors than those with higher subjective burden scores, confirming Pender's contention that situational factors, such as caregiver burden, may affect health promotion.

Section snippets

Review of literature

The conceptual framework for this study was Pender's Health Promotion model (1987). According to this model, several cognitive-perceptual factors determine whether a person follows a health-promoting lifestyle: importance of health, perceived control of health, perceived self-efficacy, one's definition of health, perceived health status, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers. Modifying factors, for example, demographic characteristics, biological characteristics, interpersonal influences,

Sample and procedure

Two hundred potential caregiver participants were randomly selected from a list of 236 care-recipients that were clients of a home health care vendor serving six counties in Central Illinois and had a family caregiver. The list included care-recipients that were physically dependent upon the caregiver, memory impaired, or both. All were included to obtain a sufficient number of participants. Information was gathered on whether the care-recipient had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or

Results

Data were analyzed with SPSS for Windows, Version 8.0.0 (SPSS, Inc., December 22, 1997). The mean age of caregivers was 61.1 years, S.D.=13.4, range=31–89. There were 25 males (20.5%), and 95 females (77.9%), missing data=2 (1.6%). There were 111 white participants (91.0%) and 9 Afro-American participants (7.4%), missing data=2 (1.6%). Forty-seven caregivers were spouses (38.5%) and 75 were adult children (61.5%). There were 42 college graduates (34.5%) and 78 participants who were not college

Discussion

The caregiver sample for this study was drawn randomly from the client list of a for-profit home health care agency serving a limited geographic area. Therefore, results can be generalized to similar populations only. Furthermore, participants were compensated for completing questionnaires, which may have led to a biased sample. Nevertheless, this study offers preliminary information about an area that has not been extensively investigated, the effects of caregiving on the health and well-being

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