Facters Related to Stress of Caregiver in Dementia Patients

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the caregiver’s stress responsible for dementia patients and to study the correlation between genders, elderly mutuality, caring hours, sleep quality, sense of coherence, humor, and stress levels in caregivers. The sample group which was selected with the multi-stage sampling method included 120 primary caregivers who took care of dementia patients at two tertiary hospitals with dementia specialization. The research tools were the Personal Information Questionnaire; Burden of Caregivers in Caring Patients with Dementia Measurement; Sleep Quality Index; Multidimensional Humor Measurement; Supportive Mutuality Between Elderly and Relatives Caregivers Questionnaire; and Sense of Coherence Assessment. The data collection tools were tested by 5 experts, yielding the content validity of 1, 0.96, 1, 0.99, and 0.98, respectively whereas their reliability was 0.89, 0.97, 0.95, 0.91, and 0.83, respectively. Finally, data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics: numbers, percentage, mean, standard deviation, median, maximum and minimum values; and Spearman’s rank correlation.

The results showed that 51.7 percent of the caregivers had no stress level. Moreover, the factors which were sense of coherence and humor were shown to be correlated with the caregiver’s stress and were statistically significant at p<0.001 (r = -0.598, r = -0.246, r = 0.326), respectively. The factors between supportive mutuality in patients with dementia and a sense of coherence showed negatively correlated with the stress of the caregivers. Humor was significantly positively associated with the caregiver’s stress. The result of this study suggested that support should be provided in terms of mutuality and sense of coherence for nursing planning in caregivers.