Caregiver burden in familial caregivers and foreign domestic workers of patients with traumatic brain injury in a multi-ethnic Asian population

ABSTRACT

Objective

The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence and risk factors associated with caregiver burden in familial caregivers and foreign domestic workers of patients with severe traumatic brain injury.

Methods

A total of 77 caregivers were consecutively recruited, who were either familial caregivers or foreign domestic workers. All caregivers were evaluated with the Zarit Burden Index (ZBI), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and General Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7) scale. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine factors associated with caregiver burden.

Results

The majority of participants were familial caregivers (N = 60), of which 70% experienced significant caregiver burden. In this group, 10.0% caregivers had clinically significant depression and 16.7% caregivers who had clinically significant anxiety. On multivariate analysis, factors found to be associated with caregiver burden were Glasgow Outcome Scale Extended (GOSE) of <7, presence of neuropsychiatric complications, and presence of anxiety. There was also a high prevalence of caregiver burden in foreign domestic workers (29.4%).

Conclusion

There is a high rate of caregiver burden in both familial caregivers and foreign domestic workers who care for patients with severe traumatic brain injury. Caregivers experiencing stress should also be monitored for the presence of anxiety or depression.

KEYWORDS:

• Family caregivers
• migrant workers
• caregiver exhaustion
• traumatic brain injury

Acknowledgments

We thank all participants in this study.

Declaration of interests

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

None.