Department of Psychology, Fo Guang University, Taiwan.
Department of Psychology, Fo Guang University, Taiwan; Department of Psychiatry, Chia-Yi Branch, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan.
Psychiatry Res. 2020 May;287:112916. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2020.112916. Epub 2020 Mar 18.
Taking care of depressed patients significantly impacts caregivers' lives, both objectively and subjectively. The effects of caregivers' burden on their responses to their patients has yet to be investigated. The aim of this study is to explore the relationships among caregivers' subjective and objective burden, depression, frequency of caregiving behaviors, and rejective attitude. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 134 caregivers of patients diagnosed with depressive disorders. We administered questionnaire to assess caregivers' demographics, care burden, reassurance seeking, depression, rejective attitude and caring behaviors. Both caregivers' objective and subjective burdens were associated with their depressive symptoms. Rejection towards patients was determined by the caregivers' level of depressive symptoms, subjective feeling of sadness, and anger, rather than by their objective burden. On the other hand, the frequency of caregiving behavior was determined by perceived reassurance seeking and anger, rather than by caregivers' depression or objective burden. These findings suggest that caregivers' subjective burden plays a more salient role in predicting their rejection and frequency of caregiving behaviors toward the patients than objective burden. The caregivers in this study could recognize their rejective attitude toward depressed patients but still had difficulty withdrawing their care when they were already in distress.
照顾抑郁患者会对照顾者的生活产生重大影响，无论是客观方面还是主观方面。然而，照顾者负担对其对患者反应的影响尚未得到研究。本研究旨在探讨照顾者的主观和客观负担、抑郁、照顾行为的频率和排斥态度之间的关系。对 134 名被诊断为抑郁症患者的照顾者进行了横断面研究。我们采用问卷评估照顾者的人口统计学特征、照顾负担、寻求安慰、抑郁、排斥态度和照顾行为。照顾者的主观和客观负担都与他们的抑郁症状有关。对患者的排斥是由照顾者的抑郁症状、主观悲伤感和愤怒感决定的，而不是由客观负担决定的。另一方面，照顾行为的频率取决于感知到的寻求安慰和愤怒，而不是照顾者的抑郁或客观负担。这些发现表明，照顾者的主观负担在预测他们对患者的排斥和照顾行为的频率方面比客观负担更为突出。本研究中的照顾者能够认识到他们对抑郁患者的排斥态度，但当他们已经感到痛苦时，仍然难以停止照顾。
