Evaluation of care burden of family members who support caring of patients undergoing brain surgery in hospital

The study was made descriptively to determine the care burden of family members supporting the hospital care of patients' having brain operations. The study was made with family members of 102 patients having operations in the neurosurgery clinics of Black Sea Technical University Farabi Hospital in the centre of Trabzon. The data was collected by using "Descriptive Qualities Form for Patients" developed by the researcher, "Descriptive Qualities Form for Caregiver Family Members", "Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale adapted to the Clinic" (ZCBSAC) and "Barthel Index of Activities of Daily Living (BIADL). In the assessment of the data, percentage, average, standart deviation, minimum and maximum values, Mann-Whitney U Test, Kruskal-Wallis Analysis of Variance and Chi-Square Test were used. It was determined that patients having brain surgery were highly dependent on care and caregiver family members had low and near average care burden. A statictically meaningful difference was found between the family members' ZCBSAC average and age, sex, marital status, educational background, monthly income level and employment status (p<0.05). A statistically meaningful result was found between ZCBSAC point averages of caregiver family members and taking care of patient, time for patient care, family members' physical support, family member's problems in the hospital like food, prayer and transport (p<0.05). It was determined that when the dependency level of patients who had brain surgery increased, the burden of caregiver family members also increased (p<0.05). In this context, assessing the support resources of caregiver family members in patient care and guiding them to people or institutions to asssist them can be useful.