Examinig the relation between the caregiving burden and life quality of the caregivers who provide home care in Malatya

Purpose: This study was conducted to determine the general characteristics and caretaking needs of the patients registered at Home Care Health Units of Malatya Public Hospitals Union receiving home care; and also, to uncover the caregiving burden and life quality levels of the staff providing primary home care for these patients; and to investigate the factors that are influential on these. Material and Method: The study was designed in the Cross Sectional Model, and no sampling method was used in it. It was aimed to contact all the registered patients and the staff providing home care between May 26 and July 26. The sampling of the study consisted of the 383 patients who were registered at Home Care Health Services Units and 383 care taking individuals between the abovementioned dates. The data collection form consisting of the Patient and Caregiver Introduction Form, WHOQOL-BREF (TR) Life Quality Scale, and Zarit Caregiving Burden Scale were applied to the caregivers and the patients who participated in the study. The data were analyzed with ANOVA, Irrelevant t-test, and correlation analyses. After the ANOVA analysis was made, the Tukey Test, which is one of the Post Hoc Analysis methods, was applied to detect the significant difference between the groups. The p<0.05 value was taken to be statistically significant. Findings: Most of the caregivers included in the study consisted of women and informal caregivers. The patients were mostly diagnosed with stroke and were receiving treatment at home. It was determined that the average of the Caregiving Burden Scale points of the caregivers was 42.82±16.29. The Caregiving Burden Scale points of the female caregivers were higher than those of the male caregivers (p˂0.05). The averages of the Life Quality scores of the caregivers who stated that they had problems about their monthly income were lower than those who stated that they did not have any income problems (p<0.05). It was determined in the present study that there is a moderate and negative relation between the caregiving burden and life quality of the caregivers (r=-0.312, p<0.001). Result: In the light of the findings of the study, it was determined that as the burden of caregiving increases, the life quality of the caregivers decreases.