Caregiver Burden, Spirituality, and Psychological Well-Being of Parents Having Children with Thalassemia

Abstract

The research determined the relationship of caregiving burden, spirituality and psychological well-being of parents of Pakistani thalassemic patients in a crosssectional research design. The sociodemographic form, Montgomery-Borgatta burden measure (Montgomery et al. in Who should care for the elderly? An east-west value divide. World Scientific, River Edge, pp 27-54, 2000), Multidimensional Measure of Islamic Spirituality (Dasti and Sitwat in J Muslim Ment Health 8(2):47-67, 2014. doi: 10.3998/jmmh.10381607.0008.204 ) and Ryff Scale of Psychological Well-being (Ryff in J Pers Soc Psychol 57(6):1069-1081, 1989. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.57.6.1069 ) were administered on a sample of 80 parents (32 fathers and 48 mothers) recruited from different Thalassemic Centers of Lahore city, Pakistan. Data were analyzed through correlation and mediational analyses. Results indicated that the caregiver burden was negatively correlated with the psychological well-being and the domains of spirituality, while the psychological well-being and spirituality were positively correlated. We identified that the caregiver burden has direct effect on the psychological well-being of the parents and it influences the psychological well-being through the pathway of the two domains of spirituality, i.e., self-discipline and meanness-generosity. These results highlighted the role of spirituality upon the psychological well-being of caregivers, which could be utilized to prevent pathological influences (such as hard feelings, hopelessness, depressed mood, anxiety, and relationship problems) of caregiver burden and enhance psychological well-being through spiritual counseling. Caregivers can work on their well-being and burden by disciplining their lives and forgoing hard feelings toward others.

Character Strengths, Strengths Use, Future Self-Continuity and Subjective Well-Being Among Chinese University Students

“…Fourth, the present study considered SWB as the outcome variable, and adopted Diener’s (1984) model of SWB containing positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction to measure SWB because of its wide acceptance and well-established generalizability. However, it is suggested that for better understanding of multi-facet constructs of well-being and its relations to character strengths and strengths use as well as future self-continuity, future research should adopt some other models of well-being such as Ryff’s (1989) model of PWB and Seligman’s (2011) PERMA of well-being. Finally, given that this was the original study to present the moderating role of future self-continuity, future research should further investigate whether there are more underlying mechanisms (or other psychological or behavior variables such as goals pursuit and mental imagery) in such relations, which would provide more specific evidence to elucidate the role of future self-continuity in relation to strengths use and well-being.…”

Psychological impairments burden and spirituality in caregivers of terminally ill cancer patients

“…This is the first study that investigated the relationship between spiritual beliefs and caregiver burden in caregivers of terminally ill patients with cancer. Recently, a Pakistani study investigated the relationship between the burden of caregivers, spiritual and psychological well‐being in Islamic parents of thalassemia patients (Anum & Dasti, ); the results of this study showed that two domains of spirituality (self‐discipline and meanness‐generosity) mediated the relationship between caregiver burden and psychological well‐being of caregivers.…”

Theorizing Beta Thalassemia Major: an Overview of Health Sociology

“…It has been explored by many researchers (Anum & Dasti, 2016) that patients and families of thalassemia are usually pilloried, particularly because of tribal factors. Mostly these individuals (patients of thalassemia disease) are called and pronounced as thalassemic (being labeled based on their disease).…”