Chou Y C, Pu C Y, Lee Y C, Lin L C, Kröger T
Institute/Research Center of Health and Welfare Policy, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
J Intellect Disabil Res. 2009 Jul;53(7):654-64. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2788.2009.01173.x. Epub 2009 Apr 9.
Little account has been taken of quality of life (QoL) among family carers of adults with an intellectual disability (ID) and family carers of adults with a mental illness (MI), particularly the female ageing carers' perceived stigma. We explore whether there are differences in the significant predictors of female ageing family carers' QoL between family carers of adults with ID and family carers of adults with MI and aim to examine the effect of these differences in stigma on carer QoL between the two groups.
A structural survey interview was administered to 350 female family carers supporting persons with ID and 66 female carers supporting persons with MI; the carers were aged 55 years and older, and the interviews were carried between July 2006 and April 2007 at the carers' homes in a county in Taiwan. The survey package contained standardised scales to measure the carer's stigma, social support, QoL and health as well as adult and carer socio-demographic data.
The results highlight that in both groups the ageing female family carers' health and social support were strongly associated with the level of their QoL even though there was also a strong effect of carers' perceived stigma on their QoL. Contrary to previous findings, ageing female family carers of adults with MI had a higher level of QoL compared with the carers of adults with ID. Hierarchical regressions show a stronger effect of perceived stigma on the carer QoL among the family carers of adults with MI than among the carers of adults with ID.
This study suggests that attempts to improve these female older family carers' health and social support must include their lifelong unmet needs in terms of how to cope with the perceived stigma associated with their position.
智障成年人的家庭照顾者以及患有精神疾病成年人的家庭照顾者的生活质量（QoL）很少受到关注，尤其是女性老年照顾者所感受到的耻辱感。我们探讨智障成年人家庭照顾者与患有精神疾病成年人家庭照顾者在女性老年家庭照顾者生活质量的重要预测因素上是否存在差异，并旨在研究这些耻辱感差异对两组照顾者生活质量的影响。
对350名照顾智障人士的女性家庭照顾者和66名照顾患有精神疾病人士的女性照顾者进行了结构化调查访谈；照顾者年龄在55岁及以上，访谈于2006年7月至2007年4月在台湾某县照顾者家中进行。调查问卷包含标准化量表，用于测量照顾者的耻辱感、社会支持、生活质量和健康状况，以及成年人和照顾者的社会人口统计学数据。
结果表明，在两组中，老年女性家庭照顾者的健康和社会支持与她们的生活质量水平密切相关，尽管照顾者所感受到的耻辱感对其生活质量也有很大影响。与先前的研究结果相反，患有精神疾病成年人的老年女性家庭照顾者的生活质量水平高于智障成年人的照顾者。分层回归显示，与智障成年人的照顾者相比，患有精神疾病成年人的家庭照顾者所感受到的耻辱感对照顾者生活质量的影响更大。
本研究表明，要改善这些老年女性家庭照顾者的健康和社会支持，必须满足她们在应对与其照顾者身份相关的耻辱感方面长期未得到满足的需求。
