Abstract
Parkinson’s disease (PD) promotes burden among patients and caregivers.Objective:To analyze whether disease severity (UPDRS and Karnofsky index), total disease duration, patient cognitive status (MMSE), presence of other diseases, patient age, socioeconomic conditions (ABEP2015), living together with patient, total time caregiving, weekly hours of care and presence of assistance from other caregivers are correlated with, and influence statistically, the degree of caregiver burden measured by the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI).Methods:After ethics Committee approval, patients and respective caregivers were recruited. Following evaluation with the proper scales, all data were submitted to Pearson’s correlation method and multivariate linear regression analysis (ANOVA).Results:A total of 21 patients and respective caregivers were evaluated. 72% (N=15) of caregivers reported burden. One third of caregivers reported a moderate or severe level of burden. A cause-effect relationship could not be established by the statistical method adopted, but disease severity measured by the UPDRS was the sole variable showing statistically significant moderate positive Pearson’s correlation with ZBI (r=0.48, for p<0.05). On ANOVA, however, no independent variable had a statistically significant impact on ZBI scores.Conclusion:Despite our conflicting results, optimization of the available treatment, with better control of PD severity, can be considered an important element to effectively achieve the goal of reducing burden among caregivers.
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease (PD) promotes burden among patients and caregivers
The aim of the present study is to describe our experience with Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) among PD patient caregivers and to correlate, using statistical methods, ZBI scores with some presumed or probable burden-generating factors in caring for PD patients, naming, disease severity, disease duration, patient cognitive status, presence of other patient co-morbidities, patient age, whether caregiver lives with the patient and time dedicated to patient care, socioeconomic conditions and, the presence or absence of a “helping hand” from other caregivers, sharing some care tasks in the direct management of the patient
Data collection for evaluations and scales applied in both groups of patients and their respective caregivers occurred between July 2015 and June 2016, attended in the outpatient care clinic for parkinsonian patients of the State University of the West of Paraná (UNIOESTE), Brazil
Summary
Parkinson’s disease (PD) promotes burden among patients and caregivers. Objective: To analyze whether disease severity (UPDRS and Karnofsky index), total disease duration, patient cognitive status (MMSE), presence of other diseases, patient age, socioeconomic conditions (ABEP2015), living together with patient, total time caregiving, weekly hours of care and presence of assistance from other caregivers are correlated with, and influence statistically, the degree of caregiver burden measured by the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI). One third of caregivers reported a moderate or severe level of burden. A cause-effect relationship could not be established by the statistical method adopted, but disease severity measured by the UPDRS was the sole variable showing statistically significant moderate positive Pearson’s correlation with ZBI (r=0.48, for p
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