Family Caregivers Burden and its Related Factors Among Iranian Elderly Psychiatric Patients’ Caregivers

Background: Providing care for an old person with a psychiatric disorder is a long-term and stressful process exerting negative outcomes on the caregivers’ physical, psychological, and social health. Objectives: The aim of the study was to determine the burden among family caregivers of psychiatric elderly and its related factors. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted on 200 elderly psychiatric patients via convenient sampling, referring to the zare teaching psychiatric hospital of Sari, Iran. The sampling lasted from June tomid-November, 2015. Twoquestionnaires of demographics (the elderly and caregivers) and Zarit Burden Interview were used to collect the data. The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, such as independent t-test, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Scheffe Post Hoc test. Results: The results indicated that the mean of the caregivers’ age was 51.24 12.16. Ninety-four percent of the caregivers were married, and 49% had higher diploma education. Sixty-seven percent reported average economic status. The findings showed 68% of caregivers came up with mild to severe burden. According to the demographics, the hours of care per week (P = 0.001) and having other psychiatric patients in the family (P = 0.006) were related to the burden. Conclusions: Significantly high caregivers’ burden can overshadow the risk of low quality of care the psychiatric elderly patients and expose their caregivers’ psychological health to danger. Thus, it seems that community-oriented interventions are required to reduce the burden and boost long-term quality of care by informal caregivers, such as patients’ families.