Impacto da sobrecarga e da depressão na qualidade de vida dos cuidadores de idosos em atendimento domiciliar

Abstract

The increase of disabling chronic diseases in elderly people has been a major challenge for governments, family members and society. In this regard, the participation of the caregiver – the individual responsible for basic, social and rehabilitation needs – stands out.The act of caring is a complex task, which requires skills and presents obstacles that can interfere with the caregiver's quality of life. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of overload and depression on the quality of life of caregivers of elderly people in home care. The survey was applied to 102 caregivers characterized as primarily responsible for the care given to elderly patients registered in Melhorem Casa Program, a service provided by the Department of Home Care in the city of Juiz de Fora. Data collection took place through the application of a form for analysis of the sociodemographic profile of the caregiver, in addition to the use of the Zarit Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory and the reduced version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment questionnaire (WHOQOL-bref). For statistical analysis, the SPSS program (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, version 20) was used. In the characterization of elderly caregivers, descriptive analyzes were performed using frequency, central tendency and dispersion measures. The normality of continuous variables was verified using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. For association between independent variables and quality of life scores, Student's t test or Mann-Whitney were used. All variables with p-value ≤ 0.10 were included in the multiple linear regression. The significance level adopted was 5%. The profile of elderly caregivers was female, 55.7 (±11.4) years old, white, married or in a stable union, with high school education, unpaid for the care provided, without training courses, with some degree of kinship with the sick and offering care seven days a week for totally dependent seniors. Overload was observed in 69.6% of caregivers, in addition to the presence of symptoms suggestive of depression in 41.1% of the study population. Overload was associated with worse quality of life in the physical, psychological and social relationship domains; while depression was associated with worse quality of life in the psychological and general assessment domains. However, it is concluded that education and support for elderly caregivers, with a view to the need for training to exercise their role, should be systematically and continuously included in the list of services offered by the health system, in order to provide overload reduction as well as improvement of the caregivers` mental health, enabling a better quality of life.