Trabalho e qualidade de vida dos cuidadores domiciliares de idosos residentes em Teixeiras, Minas Gerais / Work and quality of life of in-home elder caregivers in Teixeiras, Minas Gerais

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

Currently in Brazil, growing in importance to studies on home care to the health of older people and their carers, due to demographic and epidemiological transitions in the country. In Primary Care, with the implementation of the Family Health Program (PSF), the family registration done by community health agents became visible to the health needs of these patients, but confined to their homes, and their caregivers. This study aimed to evaluate the burden of work and quality of life of caregivers of elderly home by teams of family health, relating it to sociodemographic characteristics, health status and degree of functional independence of the elderly. We interviewed 66 family caregivers attended by PSF teams in the municipality of Teixeiras-MG. The instruments used were: 1) characterization of the caregiver and the elderly home, 2) WHOQOL-BREF to assess subjective quality of life, 3) Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) for assessment of caregiver burden, and 4) Scale Functional Independence Measure (FIM) for assessing the functional capacity of older people. Caregivers were, mostly, women (83.3%), married (62.2%) with mean age of 50.5 years. Provided that son or daughter (37.9%) or husbands and wives (24.2%), caring for elderly with up to 50% of dependency for basic activities of daily living (FIM total = 57.82) and were moderately overloaded (Zarit total = 32.12). Showed better scores in quality of life in the physical domain (66.72) and worse in the environment (52.51). The results showed that the quality of life of caregivers was statistically correlated to the perceived burden, indicating that the lower the scores in all areas of WHOQOL-bref, more overhead. There was no statistically significant association between the degree of functional independence and quality of life of caregivers. Effective public policies, to provide a network of support services to families of older people, are paramount to reducing the burden on caregivers and the consequent improvement of their quality of life and their families.

ASSUNTO(S)

economia domestica functional independence qualidade de vida in-home elder caregivers cuidador domiciliar de idosos independência funcional quality of life

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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