Quality of Life of Primary Caregivers of Dependent Elderly

Abstract

Caregiving of a dependent elderly is one of the gruelling tasks that develops burden of stress among caregivers. The caregiver stress is an important and negative parameter which is harmful for the primary caregivers. In fact, the burden upon the primary caregivers ultimately changes the perception of quality of life. The overburdening of the tasks viz. household as well as caregiving and that is also without required amount of help leads to poor quality of life of the primary caregivers. The present study was conducted on a sample of 60 primary caregivers from middle socio-economic status families situated in the district of Ludhiana city of Punjab. Zarit Burden Interview developed by Zarit et al. (1980) was used to assess the caregiver stress of the primary caregivers. The quality of life of the respondents was assessed by the World Health Organization Quality of Life-Bref questionnaire which was developed by World Health Organization (1997). The results revealed that a major proportion of the respondents reported to possess a low level of quality of life. Statistically significant association was found between the caregiver stress and the overall quality of life as well as across different domains of quality of life of the primary caregivers.