Research Division, Institute of Mental Health, Buangkok Green Medical Park, 10 Buangkok View, 539747, Singapore, Singapore.
Department of Geriatric Psychiatry, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore, Singapore.
BMC Geriatr. 2021 Apr 30;21(1):286. doi: 10.1186/s12877-021-02238-2.
Informal caregivers of persons with dementia often experience elevated levels of caregiving burden. However, existing studies tend to use a variable-centered approach to explore it. This study aims to understand the caregiving burden of informal caregivers of persons with dementia in Singapore through a combination of variable-centered and person-centered analytical approaches, and explore the correlates of identified factors and latent classes of caregiving burden.
Zarit Burden Interview was used to gauge the caregiving burden of 282 primary informal caregivers of persons with dementia recruited through convenience sampling in Singapore. Factor analysis and latent class analysis were conducted to identify the latent factors and the latent classes of Zarit Burden Interview, followed by multiple linear regression and multinomial logistic regression to explore their significant correlates.
The analyses suggested a 17-item 3-factor structure for Zarit burden interview and three mutually exclusive caregiving burden classes. Regression analyses found that caregiving related variables especially care recipients' memory and behaviour problems were correlated with both the factors and latent classes of caregiving burden.
The combination of these two approaches suggests that caregivers experiencing higher burden on one domain are likely to experience higher burden on the other two domains. This further supports the point that more attention should be given to caregivers who experience an overall high burden. Future research could explore the generalizability of our findings among caregivers elsewhere and explore the type of support needed by caregivers, especially those experiencing high burden.
痴呆症患者的非正式照顾者经常经历高水平的照顾负担。然而，现有研究往往采用变量为中心的方法来探讨这一问题。本研究旨在通过变量为中心和以人为中心的分析方法相结合，了解新加坡痴呆症患者非正式照顾者的照顾负担，并探讨确定因素和照顾负担潜在类别的相关性。
采用 Zarit 负担访谈量表，通过便利抽样在新加坡招募了 282 名痴呆症患者的主要非正式照顾者，对其进行了评估。进行了因子分析和潜在类别分析，以确定 Zarit 负担访谈的潜在因素和潜在类别，然后进行多元线性回归和多项逻辑回归，以探讨其显著相关性。
分析表明，Zarit 负担访谈有 17 项 3 因素结构和 3 个互斥的照顾负担类别。回归分析发现，与照顾相关的变量，特别是照顾对象的记忆和行为问题，与照顾负担的因素和潜在类别都相关。
这两种方法的结合表明，在一个领域负担较重的照顾者，在其他两个领域也可能负担较重。这进一步支持了这样一种观点，即应该更加关注那些整体负担较重的照顾者。未来的研究可以探讨我们的研究结果在其他地方的照顾者中的可推广性，并探讨照顾者所需的支持类型，特别是那些负担较重的照顾者。
