Quality of life, psychological well-being, and resilience in caregivers of people with acquired brain injury (ABI)

ABSTRACT

Aim: The study aims to examine whether characteristics of patients with Acquired Brain Injury–ABI (time elapsed since injury, level of dependence and behavioral problems) and resilience factors of the caregiver predicted caregiver well-being (quality of life, anxiety,depression and positive aspects of caregiving).

Methods: 78 voluntary family caregivers (75.6% female) of patients with ABI completed the Barthel Index, Head Behavior Injury Scale, Questionnaire of Resilience in Caregivers of Acquired Brain Injury, WHOQOL-BREF, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale,and Positive Aspects of Caregiving Scale. Correlation analysis and stepwise regression were carried out.

Results: Time elapsed since injury showed a negative relationship with positive aspects of caregiving. On the other hand, care-recipients’ behavioral problems showed significant associations with all caregiver variables: negatively with quality of life and positive aspects of caregiving, and positively with anxiety and depression. Regarding resilience, we found a positive relationship with quality of life and positive aspects of caregiving, and a negative association with anxiety and depression, showing better predictive power with depression.

Conclusions: We confirm the relevance of developing multidisciplinary caregiver intervention programmes focused on positive ways to handle care-recipients’ behavioral problems and developing positive coping skills, such as positive reinterpretation, acceptance and seeking social support, that may optimize caregiver resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• Caregivers
• acquired brain injury
• quality of life
• resilience
• positive aspects of care
• anxiety
• depression

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our at thanks to all family-member caregivers who took part in the study, and to the organisations that allowed us access: FEDACE (Spanish Federation for Brain Damage); CEADAC (National Reference Centre for Caring for Brain Damage); Sant Joan de Déu Hospital (Palma de Mallorca); Ramon Llull University (Girona) and collaborators from Hospital Sant Pau, Ateneo Castellon, among others.

Declaration of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid (Spain), in the context of an Aristos Campus Mundus Project.