Comparison in Care Burden, Fatigue, and Life Contentment of Caregivers by Gender Relationship with Demented Elders

Young Whee Lee; In Sook Cho; Hwa Soon Kim

doi:10.4069/kjwhn.2009.15.3.196

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Lee, Cho, and Kim: Comparison in Care Burden, Fatigue, and Life Contentment of Caregivers by Gender Relationship with Demented Elders

Original Article

Korean Journal of Women Health Nursing

Korean Journal of Women Health Nursing 2009; 15(3): 196-204.

Published online: 29 September 2009

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4069/kjwhn.2009.15.3.196

Comparison in Care Burden, Fatigue, and Life Contentment of Caregivers by Gender Relationship with Demented Elders

Young Whee Lee¹, In Sook Cho², Hwa Soon Kim³

¹Professor, Nursing Department, College of Medicine, Inha University, Korea.

²Assistant professor, Nursing Department, College of Medicine, Inha University, Korea.

³Associate professor, Nursing Department, College of Medicine, Inha University, Korea.

Address reprint requests to: Cho, In Sook, Department of Nursing, College of Medicine, Inha University, 253 Yonghyeon-dong, Nam-gu, Incheon 402-751, Korea. Tel: 82-32-860-8201, Fax: 82-32-874-5880, insook.cho@inha.ac.kr

Received 9 April 2009 Accepted 4 September 2009

Abstract

Purpose

This study was done in order to examine the differences in gender respect to care burden, fatigue, and life contentment of family caregivers of elderly with dementia.

Methods

The setting of the study was a community-based dementia care center providing daycare services. One hundred ninety four caregivers were recruited for the survey. A structured questionnaire was used which included demographic information, care burden, fatigue, and general contentment scales. Caregivers were classified into 4 groups by gender relationship with care recipients.

Results

The majority of the caregivers were middle-aged and elderly. More than twice as many were female rather than male caregivers. The results showed that women caregivers expressed more fatigue than men overall (p< .05). In the gender relationships, a different combination of man-woman appeared to have more burdens than that of a woman-woman group (p< .05). For fatigue, the man caregiver-woman elderly group showed a higher fatigue score than a woman-man group (p< .05). However, there was no significant difference in life contentment among groups.

Conclusion

These results suggest that caregiver's gender and gender relationship with elders could be considerable factors when the nurses make a plan in the community for dementia nursing management services.

Keywords: Sex differences, Elderly, Caregivers, Fatigue, Personal satisfaction

Figures and Tables

Table 1

Characteristics of elders with dementia and their caregivers (N=194)

Table 2

Comparison of care burden, fatigue, and generalized life contentment by caregiver's gender (N=194)

Table 3

Community resource utilization or help from others by caregivers' gender (N=194)

Table 4

Gender distribution of demented elders and caregivers (N=194)

Table 5

Comparison of care burden, fatigue, and generalized life contentment by the combination of demented elders and caregiver's gender (N=194)

MM, MF, FM, and FF refer the male-male, male-female, female-male, and female-female group of patient and caregivers' gender respectively.

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