Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Factors contributing to spousal and offspring caregiver burden in Parkinson's disease


Eur Neurol. 2012;67(5):292-6. Epub 2012 Apr 17.
Shin H, Lee JY, Youn J, Kim JS, Cho JW.


Abstract

Background/Aims: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease with a chronic disease course. The increase in life expectancy of humans worldwide is expected to increase the prevalence and duration of PD; therefore, it is important to determine factors that contribute to the caregiver burden for both clinical and social reasons. Methods: We surveyed 91 main caregivers of patients, and compared factors contributing to caregiver burden between 50 spouses and 41 offspring of patients. We determined Burden Interview, Depression Scale, Health-Related Quality of Life, and Obligation Scale scores, as well as the degree of functional social support of caregivers. Results: Interestingly, the burden scores of the two groups were not significantly different. Correlation analysis revealed that depression, health-related quality of life, social support, subdivided parts of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), Hoehn and Yahr Scale, score of Mini-Mental State Examination, and Barthel index were correlated with burden in both spouses and offspring. However, in multiple regression, depression score and part 1 of the UPDRS were more significant predictors of burden in the spousal group, whereas social support of community and part 3 of the UPDRS were more important correlated factors in the offspring group. Conclusions: The caregiver burden of spousal and offspring caregivers of PD patients was not significantly different. However, different factors contributed to caregiver burden according to the caregiver's relationship with the patient.

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