Status quo and influencing factors of caregivers' empowerment ability to home disabled elderly

Abstract

Objective To investigate the status quo and influencing factors of caregivers' empowerment ability to home disabled elderly. Methods A total of 344 home caregivers to elderly treated in Department of Geriatrics in a certain level-III Class A hospital were selected by convenience sampling and surveyed by a questionnaire on general information, a main caregiver empowerment measurement scale, a caregivers' self-efficacy scale, an activities daily living scale, an instrumental activities of daily living scale by Lawton, a perceived social support scale, and a scale on decision of the elderly, about the caregivers' general information, self-efficacy, social support, health decision, and general information and daily living abilities of the elderly. Factors influencing empowerment ability were determined by single factor analysis and multiple stepwise regression analysis. Results Scores of caregivers' empowerment ability to home disabled elderly were (154.06±15.60) points, with the highest going to the dimension of expectation to the results (21.59±2.89) and the lowest going to the dimension of knowledge and skill on the care (8.46±2.35) . It was shown in multiple stepwise regression analysis that factors influencing empowerment ability included monthly family income of the elderly, self-efficacy of the caregiver and social support (P<0.05) . Conclusions With health empowerment theory as the framework, communities and nursing institutions for the aged should provide caregivers with more resources and social support, by developing training courses for them from the perspective of improving the caregivers' self-efficacy. Besides, the disabled elderly with low income should be paid close attention to. Key words: Disabled elderly; Caregivers; Empowerment ability; Influencing factors