Sociodemographic, clinical, and psychosocial factors associated with burden in older caregivers: a cross-sectional study.

The task of caring can negatively affect the physical and mental health; therefore, it is important to understand which factors are associated with burden in older caregivers of older adults.

Objective: This study aimed to explore sociodemographic, clinical, and psychosocial factors associated with burden in older caregivers of older adults.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study developed with 349 older caregivers who were registered at a Family Health Unit of a city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Household interviews were conducted and data were collected on the sociodemographic (profile, family income), clinical (self-reported pain, sleep, frailty), and psychosocial (burden, family functioning, depressive symptoms, stress) characteristics of the caregivers as well as dependence on activities of daily living and cognition in the care recipients.

Results: Women predominated in the sample (76.5%) and mean age was 69.5 years. The mean burden score was 18.06 points, with 47.9% above the cutoff of 16 points, denoting excessive burden. The bivariate model revealed associations between burden and financial insufficiency, family dysfunction, difficulty sleeping, pain, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, frailty, and multimorbidity among the caregivers as well as worse functional and cognitive performance in the care recipients. The controlled model revealed an association between burden and depressive symptoms (β=16.75; 95%CI 1.80-31.68).

Conclusions: We identified an association between burden and depressive symptoms, underscoring the need for the planning and implementation of specific actions directed at caregivers in order to minimize the impact on health and to improve the quality of life.