Factors Related to Caregiver Burden of Dementia Patients in Wenzhou, China

Abstract

This study aimed to describe the level of caregiver burden among dementia patients in Wenzhou, China, and to examine the relationships between patients’ cognitive function, activities of daily living (ADL), sleep disturbance, caregiver social support and caregiver burden. A simple random sampling technique was used to recruit 105 primary family caregivers of dementia patients from the Department of Neurology of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University. Research instruments included a demographic questionnaire, the Chinese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE, Cronbach’s α=0.91), the Barthel Index (BI, Cronbach’s α=0.92) for ADL assessment, the Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS, Cronbach’s α=0.97) for sleep disturbance, the Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS, Cronbach’s α=0.83) and the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI, Cronbach’s α=0.87) for caregiver burden evaluation. Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s product-moment correlation were used to analyze the data. Results revealed that the mean ZBI score of caregivers was 21.97 (SD=9.47), with 50.5% experiencing moderate burden, 44.7% mild burden and only 4.8% high burden (no severe burden). Pearson correlation analysis showed that patient cognitive function (r=-0.69, p<0.001) and ADL (r=-0.69, p<0.001) were highly negatively correlated with caregiver burden, social support (r=-0.40, p<0.001) was moderately negatively correlated with caregiver burden, and patient sleep disturbance (r=0.68, p<0.001) was highly positively correlated with caregiver burden. The results indicate that poorer patient cognitive function and ADL, more severe sleep disturbance and lower social support are key factors associated with higher caregiver burden among dementia caregivers in Wenzhou. These findings can be applied to develop targeted nursing interventions to alleviate caregiver burden and improve the quality of life for both dementia patients and their caregivers.