[Depression and burden in the caretaking of elderly].

OBJECTIVE

Informal care affects the quality of life and emotional health. Objective: To analyze the relationship between burden and depression in caregivers measured by Zarit's Scale and GHQ-28 and the global functional deterioration of the elderly measured by OARS-MFAQ.

METHODS

Descriptive observational cross-sectional study in Primary Health Care at Ourense city. 104 people (>65 years old) and their caregivers were interviewed. Descriptive analysis and logistic regression were used to analyze the characteristics that increase the probability to suffer burden and depression.

RESULTS

82.7% of caregivers were women with an average age of 63.64 years (95% CI: 61.05-66.23) and 10.3% were over 80 years old. 32.2% had an overload, associated with taking care of younger people (p=0.043), being a couple of an elder (p=0.003) being older (p=0.031) and the risk of depression which were all found as factors associated with burden, measured by GHQ (p<0.001). Having good perception of the vision (p=0.038), rejecting the use of a cane (p=0.002) or wheelchair (p=0.015) were also associated with factors contributing to burden.

CONCLUSIONS

Informal caregivers are women around their sixties, and although they do not feel overburdened for caring, they have depression, more likely the more severe the burden is, and it is related with the perception of economic deficiencies for the caring.