RESEARCH ARTICLE
Evaluation of Family Caregiver Burden among COVID-19 Patients
Abasat Mirzaei1, 2, *, Rasoul Raesi3, 4, Sam Saghari4, Mehdi Raei5
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2020Volume: 13
First Page: 808
Last Page: 814
Publisher ID: TOPHJ-13-808
DOI: 10.2174/1874944502013010808
Article History:
Received Date: 29/7/2020Revision Received Date: 14/12/2020
Acceptance Date: 23/12/2020
Electronic publication date: 31/12/2020
Collection year: 2020
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses from the Coronaviridae family. Not only do the coronaviruses disrupt patients' lives, but they also affect caregivers. This study aimed to assess the burden of family caregivers of COVID-19 patients discharged from a hospital in eastern Iran.
Materials and Methods:
A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted with 210 family caregivers of COVID-19 inpatients and outpatients. A total of 210 COVID-19 patients referred to 22nd-Bahman Hospital of Khaf from March 2020 to June 2020 were selected via simple randomization. Data were collected using the Zarit caregiver burden scale and a demographics form.
Results:
The care burden scores were 83.2% and 80.9% in the family caregivers of inpatients and outpatients, respectively, indicating the severity of care burden for COVID-19 patients. The mean scores of objective, subjective, and subjective-objective caregiver burden were significantly higher in male family caregivers and caregivers of inpatients than in female caregivers and caregivers of outpatients [p <0.01].
Conclusion:
The high objective, subjective, and subjective-objective caregiver burden in family caregivers is an alarm for mental health policy-makers. Therefore, healthcare managers need to consider plans and measures to reduce the care burden of family caregivers of COVID-19 patients.