[Problems of main caregivers of Alzheimer patients referring to Alzheimer association in Tehran]

ABSTRACT

One of the most important challenges in today's societies is the increase of alzheimer patients. Caring these people is also an important matter for health system. Care givers perform most of their caring responsibilities and face with many problems to meet their needs in terms of their cognitive and behavioral problems. This descriptive study was conducted to determine the problems of main caregivers of alzheimer patients referring to Alzheimer Association in Tehran. 100 main caregivers were selected by census. Data collection tool was a questionnaire validated by content validity. Its reliability was measured by internal consistency [d = 0.96] and test-retest [d=0.96] methods. Findings of the study showed that mean ages of caregivers and patients were 58 and 81.53 respectively. 66% of caregivers were female and 34% were male. Mean duration of the disease was 4.2 years [SD = 2.7]. The average hour of providing care was 10.84. Most of the caregivers complained of sleep problems [63%], fatigue [63%] and severe burden [68%]. Most of them expressed communication problems with patients [74%], communication problems with families [65%], house keeping problems [60%], social relationship problems [64%], educational problems [43.3%] and occupational problems [55.3%]. Regarding economical problems, most of them, [55%] had them moderately. With respect to the increase of alzheimer patients in our society, health workers should devise programs to reduce care givers' problems for preventing bum out and decreasing burden of caregivers