Health-related quality of life of primary caregivers of persons with paraplegia.

STUDY DESIGN: A cross-sectional descriptive study was performed with structured questionnaires and interviews conducted with 60 primary caregivers of persons with paraplegia (T1 to S2) owing to traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was the assessment of the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of primary caregivers of persons with paraplegia owing to traumatic SCI. SETTING: São Paulo, SP, Brazil. METHODS: The HRQoL was assessed by the Short Form-36 (SF-36) health survey questionnaire and caregiver burden was evaluated by the Caregiver Burden Scale (CBS). RESULTS: Among 60 caregivers evaluated, 49 (81.7%) were female, with mean age of 35.8 (SD=12.91) years, 16 (26.6%) being wives and 14 (23.4%) sisters of persons with paraplegia. It was found that the caregivers spend an average of 11.3 h/day caring for individuals with paraplegia. Twenty-three caregivers (38.3%) had a chronic disease and 32 (53.3%) were sole caregivers taking upon themselves the full responsibility of caring for the persons with paraplegia. The subjects reported lower scores on bodily pain and vitality than the other dimensions of the SF-36. The mean global CBS score was 1.71 (SD=0.50) and mean scores for each dimension ranged from 1.39 (SD=0.64) for emotional involvement to 2.44 (SD=0.79) for environment dimension. CONCLUSION: The primary caregivers of spinal cord-injured persons reported low scores on all of the SF-36 and CBS dimensions, bodily pain and vitality being the SF-36 dimensions that received the lowest scores.