Does the care provided by the informal caregivers affect their quality of life?

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the role of informal care on the quality of life (QoL) of the caregiver whilst caring for an older person in the community. A hundred informal caregivers, aged between 25 and 89 years (mean 63.55 years; S.D 14.69) participated in this study. The sample was taken from those older patients who were referred for domiciliary physiotherapy services at St. Vincent de Paul Residence, Malta between June and December 2009, and January and December 2010. For the first part of the study, a detailed database of both the caregiver and the care recipient was collected and a semi-structured interview followed. This interview asked questions directly related to the type of care provided to the older person, what level of help was needed to be delivered and whether this delivery had any effect on the Quality of Life (QoL) as well as the social life of the caregiver. The Functional Independence Measure (F.I.M.) was used to measure the functional status of the care-recipients and was used as a score in terms of the burden of care. In order to be able to measure the health related QoL of the informal caregivers, the researcher also made use of the U.K. Short Form 12 Health Survey Questionnaire, or the SF-12.