Burden of caregivers of senile dementia patients: assessment with Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale

Objective To evaluate caring burden of caregivers of senile dementia patients and to analyze influencing factors for the caregivers' burden.Methods Totally 233 adults (≥18 years old)providing care to senile dementia inpatients at least 6 months or more were recruited at 4 third-level hospitals in Shenyang city of Liaonig province with random sampling and surveyed with Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale (ZBI) and a self-designed questionnaire from March 2012 through March 2013.Multivariate step-wised linear regression was adopted to explore factors associated with the caregivers' caring burden.Results Of the 233 caregivers,105 (45.06%) were male and 128 (54.94%) were female.The average ZBI score of the caregivers was 57.56±13.45.The results of multivariate analysis revealed that influencing factors for caregivers' ZBI score included the frequency of noctumal awakening of the patient,dementia type of the patient,times of on nursing duty per week,whether living together with the patient,and the age of the caregiver (P<0.05 for all).Conclusion Most of the senile dementia caregivers bear mild-to-moderate care burden.Nocturnal awakening,dementia type,frequency on nursing duty per week,and whether living together with the patient are major influencing factors for the burden of senile dementia caregivers.