Assessing the burden on primary caregivers of children with cerebral palsy and its relation to quality of life and socioeconomic aspects

Abstract

Children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) present a permanent disturbance of posture and movement, characterized by a motor loss that causes difficulty in the execution of day-to-day activities and a consequent occupational dependence. Therefore, the task of assisting children with CP can lead to the caregivers’ tiredness, isolation, and stress, also generating a physical and emotional burden and a possible decrease in the quality of life of this population. Objective: To evaluate the burden on the primary caregivers of children with CP, comparing the quality of life and the age between caregivers with and without excessive burden, as well as to compare the economic class and work status variables to the burden variable. Method: The study was characterized as analytical and transversal. There were 31 primary caregivers of children from 0 to 18 years old with a CP diagnosis who participated in the study. The instruments utilized in the research were a socio-demographic questionnaire designed to characterize the sample, the questionnaire from the Associação Brasileira de Empresas de Pesquisa (ABEP) for economic classification, the Medical Outcome Study 36 (SF-36) for the assessment of the caregivers’ quality of life, and the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) to assess the caregiver’s subjective and objective burdens. Results: The results pointed out that 67.7% of the caregivers presented burden and that the averages of some domains of the SF-36 (“limitation by physical aspects”, “pain”, “vitality” and “limitation by social aspects”) for this group were significantly smaller than for the group with no burden. There was no statistically significant association in the chi-square test between the socioeconomic class of the caregivers and the burden and between the work status and the burden. Conclusion: The presence of burden on caregivers of children with CP is related to a lesser quality of life, but the burden was not associated with the caregiver’s age, work status, or economic class.