Factors influencing care burden, social support and quality of life among caregivers of children with cerebral palsy

23^rd World Nursing and Healthcare Conference

July 10-12, 2017 Berlin, Germany

Li-Man Lin, Su-Fen Cheng, Chi-Wen Chen, Nan-Chang Chiu and Che-Sheng Ho

MacKay Memorial Hospital, Taiwan
National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taiwan

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Nurs Care

Abstract :

Children with cerebral palsy often require long-term home care by the primary caregivers, which results in great burden on the primary caregivers and thus impact their quality of life. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the relationships among care burden, social support and quality of life among the primary caregivers for children with cerebral palsy. This study used crosssectional descriptive correlational design. The following instruments were used for data collection: demographic information form, a care burden scale, a social support scale and a quality of life scale. A total of 120 primary caregivers for children with cerebral palsy participated in this study. The results showed: (1) the primary caregivers� perception of total care burden was at the level of moderate and above. Among the aspects of total care burden, perception of psychological burden had the highest score and the perception of social burden receive the lowest score; (2) in the areas of total social support, amount of sufficient social support received had the highest score, whereas the amount of social assistance received had the lowest score; (3) the primary caregivers� perceptions of total quality of life revealed a moderate to low level of satisfaction. Among the aspects of quality of life, the physical aspect of quality of life received the highest score, whereas the psychological aspect received the lowest score. Through provision of social support, the CP children�s primary caregivers may receive material, informational and emotional assistance, reduce the care burden and indirectly improve their quality of life.

Biography :

Li-Man Lin is a Head Nurse at Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of MacKay Memorial Hospital in Taiwan.