A study of burden of care and its correlates among family members supporting relatives and loved ones with traumatic spinal cord injuries
Objective: To understand and describe in a sample of caregivers of persons with spinal cord injury, their burden of care, resilience and life satisfaction and to explore the relationship between these variables. Design: Cross-sectional design. Setting: One Spinal Cord Injury Acute Inpatient Unit fro...
| Autores: | , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión aceptada para publicación |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2017 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) |
| Repositorio: | O2, repositorio institucional de la UOC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:openaccess.uoc.edu:10609/151918 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10609/151918 https://doi.org/10.1177/0269215517709330 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | spinal cord injury caregivers burden of care resilience life satisfaction |
| Sumario: | Objective: To understand and describe in a sample of caregivers of persons with spinal cord injury, their burden of care, resilience and life satisfaction and to explore the relationship between these variables. Design: Cross-sectional design. Setting: One Spinal Cord Injury Acute Inpatient Unit from a general hospital. Subjects: Seventy-five relatives of persons with spinal cord injuries (84% women) with a mean age of 48.55 (SD=12.55) years. Interventions: None. Measures: Demographics (neurological loss and severity according to the American Spinal Injury Association criteria), the Zarit Burden Interview, the Resilience Scale and the Life Satisfaction Checklist. Results: All caregivers experienced feelings of different intensities of burden (52% mild-to-moderate, 43% moderate-to-severe and 5% severe), and none of them expressed little or no burden at the assessment moment. Caregivers’ main worries were “dependence” and “the future of the injured.” Resilience was medium-to-high (mean=141.93, SD=23.44) for the whole sample with just a minority of them revealing low (15%) or very low resilience (7%). The highest scores were obtained in relation to “caregivers’ independence” and “meaning of their lives.” Life satisfaction scores were medium-to-high (mean=36.6, SD=6). These scores were not related to demographics or the severity of the injury. Zarit Burden Interview scores were negatively correlated to Resilience Scale (r=−.370, P=.001) and Life Satisfaction Checklist scores (r=−.412, P<.001). Conclusion: More resilient and satisfied caregivers experienced lower burden. Burden is moderate-to-high and mainly related to uncertainty about the future, caregivers’ insecurity with caregiving and dependence of the injured. |
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