在宅要介護老人の介護者のストレス

Abstract

This paper discusses and estimates the various factors on stress which have been used with family caregivers for the impaired elderly, and explores the factors influencing the stress of family caregivers, using the conceptual components of stress : “Stressor”, “Perception of caregivers”, “Resources” and “Stress response”. The sample consists of 873 family caregivers for the impaired elderly living in Nagano prefecture, of which 712 (81.6%) were valid responses. A questionnaire was developed to investigate present stress symptoms of the caregivers. Principal component analysis, Cronbach's alpha, Multivariate analysis of variance and Multivariate analysis of convariance are used to look at the relationships between factors on the stress of caregivers. The findings show that, the conceptional components, “Stress response” is related to the other components “Stressor”, “Perception of caregivers” and “Resources”. As for “ Stress response”, there were nine significant factors influencing the stress level of family caregivers. They are the elderly person's mental status, the quality of service, traditional caregiving ideology, the caregiver's health, the caregiver's job status, the emotional attachments in family relations, the emotional support from relatives, the emotional support from friends and neighbors, and instrumental support in the case of emergency from relatives.