Caregiver burden among adults caring for orphaned children in rural South Africa

Figures & data

Table 1. Characteristics of orphan caregivers in Eastern Cape, South Africa (N = 726).

Caregiver level
	N	%
Female	666	91.7
Married/partnered	520	71.7
Education
No education	63	8.7
Some primary	370	51.0
Some secondary or higher	293	40.4
Food security
Little to no hunger	510	70.3
Moderate hunger	173	23.9
Severe hunger	42	5.8
Potential AIDS-related illness	102	14.1
	Mean	SD
Age in years	54.9	16.1
Household level
	N	%
Other adult chronic illness in household	135	18.6
Household death in past year	110	15.2
Rural village	683	94.1
	Mean	SD
Dependency ratio	1.6	1.2
Monthly income in Rand	2565.3	2077.6

Table 2. Endorsement of caregiving burden scale items.

Orphan caregiving, N = 724, alpha = 0.82	Never/rarely	Sometimes	Quite frequently/nearly always
How often do you feel:	%	%	%
…that because of the time you spend with the orphaned child(ren) that you don’t have enough time for yourself?	72	16	14
…stressed between caring for the orphaned child(ren) and trying to meet other responsibilities for your family or work?	57	20	23
…angry when you are around the orphaned child(ren)?	60	25	15
…that your care for the orphaned child(ren) currently affects your relationships with other family members or friends in a negative way?	77	14	9
…strained when caring for the orphaned child(ren)?	66	20	14
…your health has suffered because of your involvement with the orphaned child(ren)?	65	18	17
…that you don’t have as much privacy as you would like because of the orphaned child(ren)?	79	10	11
…that your social life has suffered because you are caring for the orphaned child(ren)?	72	15	14
…you have lost control of your life since you began caring for the orphaned child(ren)?	74	14	12
…uncertain about what to do about the orphaned child(ren)?	78	13	9
….you should be doing more for the orphaned child(ren)?	11	10	79
….you could do a better job in caring for the orphaned child(ren)?	7	10	83

Table 3. Marginal effects of caregiver and household factors regressed onto ZBI scores.

	Model (1)		Model (2)
Independent variables	Marginal Effect	SE	Marginal Effect	SE
Caregiver and household demographics
Female	−0.036	(1.10)	−0.14	(1.06)
Age in years	0.027	(0.024)	0.022	(0.025)
Married/partnered	0.16	(0.73)	0.12	(0.71)
Education
None (ref)
Some primary	1.51	(1.24)	1.91*	(1.16)
Some secondary or higher	1.47	(1.31)	1.81	(1.23)
Dependency ratio	0.23	(0.23)	0.21	(0.23)
Food insecurity
Little to no hunger (ref)
Moderate hunger	2.70***	(0.78)	2.26***	(0.78)
Severe hunger	7.82***	(1.25)	6.78***	(1.20)
Household income (per 1000 Rand)	0.44**	(0.18)	0.45***	(0.17)
Neighbourhood type
Rural village (ref)
Rural township/commercial farm	0.63	(2.04)	0.66	(1.98)
Potential AIDS-related impacts
Caregiver AIDS-related illness			3.77***	(0.83)
Other adult chronic illness in household			0.65	(0.68)
Household death in past year			0.69	(0.83)
Observations	716		715

Notes: Robust standard errors (SEs) in parentheses.

***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1.