Does the Disease of the Person Receiving Care Affect the Emotional State of Non-professional Caregivers?

Abstract

Research on mental health of non-professional caregivers has focused on caregivers of people with specific diseases, especially dementia. Less is known about caregivers of people with other diseases. The aims of this study were (a) to determine the caregivers’ emotional state in a random sample of caregivers of people in situations of dependency, (b) to analyze the association between each disease of the care-recipient (a variety of 23 diseases included in the International Classification of Diseases) and the emotional state of the caregiver, and (c) based on the theoretical model, to analyze the relationship of the different study variables in the appearance of the emotional distress of the caregiver. A sample of 491 non-professional caregivers was selected randomly (89.0% women, average age 55.3 years). Trained psychologists collected sociodemographic and care-related characteristics and evaluated the global emotional distress, somatic symptoms, anxiety-insomnia, social dysfunction, depression, probable mental disorder case, self-esteem, and social support. It was found that (a) the caregivers showed moderate emotional distress, and 33.8% presented a probable mental disorder. (b) Caring for a care-recipient with cat’s cry syndrome or epilepsy was related to suffering from social dysfunction, and caring for a care-recipient with autism was related to having a probable mental health case. (c) Social support mediated the relationship between social class, daily hours of care, monthly family income, self-esteem and global emotional distress. There is an important impact on the emotional state of the caregivers. This impact was similar in caregivers of care-recipients with different diseases, except in caregivers caring for a care-recipient with cat’s cry syndrome or epilepsy (related to social dysfunction), and in caregivers caring for a care-recipient with autism (related to having a probable mental health case).

Perceived social support in Chinese family caregivers of patients with dementia

“…As estimated, 75% of the patients with dementia are cared for by family caregivers (Li et al, 2019; Stensletten et al, 2014), such as family members, relatives and friends (Wawrziczny et al, 2017). Lin et al (2019) found that caregivers had increased burden to take care of activities of daily living and neuropsychiatric symptoms of people with dementia and caregivers also suffered from moderate emotional distress (Caceres et al, 2016; Otero et al, 2019), depression and anxiety (Qiu et al, 2019), grief (Li et al, 2019; Sanders et al, 2007), stress (Correa et al, 2019; Podgorski, 2018), burden (Allen et al, 2017; Yu et al, 2018) and affiliate stigma (Chang et al, 2016; Saffari et al, 2019; Su & Chang, 2020). These negative emotional reactions ultimately result in negative effects on family caregivers' health, both physically and mentally (Meichsner et al, 2017).…”

Doota adhyaya of Bhela indriya sthana - An explorative study

“…23 The caregiver stress process generated by the care situation, socio-demographic characteristics (i.e., as age, gender, educational level, marital status, and social class of the caregiver, relationship with and gender of the patient) are related to primary stressors (i.e., the patient's disease, dependence level of the patient, duration and daily hours of care), and that primary and secondary stressors (i.e., employment, monthly family income and caregivers' self-esteem) are related to caregivers' emotional state. 24 The job of caregiving is burdensome and it definitely affects the physical and psychological health of caregivers negatively.…”

A gondozás hatása a családi gondozók érzelmi jóllétére és egészségére.

“…Otero és mtsai kutatási [28] eredményei megerősítik, hogy a hasonló gondozási helyzet is különböző megterheltségérzettel járhat, hiszen a megterheltséget jelentősen befolyásolják az erőforrások és a megküzdési módok. Kiemelik, hogy a társas támogatás védőfaktort jelenthet a gondozás objektív terheit és a gondozással járó érzelmi disstresszek következményeit illetően is.…”