The relationship between hardiness, health status, and qualityof life among primary caregivers involved in home care

• Main Authors: Li-Ju Chen, 陳麗如
• Other Authors: Chii-Jun Chiou
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/45443670019019154643

碩士 === 高雄醫學大學 === 護理學研究所碩士班 === 92 === The purpose of the research was to explore the relations among health status, hardiness, and quality of life in primary caregivers involved in home care. The study’s design was cross-sectional and correlational. Subjects consisted of 105 primary caregivers involved in home care, from the Home Nursing Unit at a medical center in Tainan. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data via a face to face interview. The questionnaire gave to the caregivers included patient characteristics, caregiver characteristics, self-perceived health status, presence of chronic illness, whether or not have self-rated symptom, The Health Related Hardiness Scale (HRHS), and a quality of life scale (WHOQOL-BREF). The data was analyzed using SPSS 10.0 for Windows. The major findings of this study were as follows: (1) using the Taiwanese WHOQOL-BREF the mean score of overall quality of life of caregivers was 51.81 out of 80, in the domain of physical health quality of life got the highest score (13.52), in the psychological domain quality of life got the lowest score (12.43). (2) The mean of caregiver’s hardiness score was 160.72, the medium was 160.00, which indicated that the caregivers had a middle level of hardiness. (3) The mean of caregivers’ perceived health status score was 5.10, which rated as fair. Most of the caregivers did not have a chronic illness, and most of the caregivers had self-rated symptom.(4) The most important predictive variables for the quality of life were caregiver’s self-perceived health status, hardiness, household income, and years of caring. These variables explained 41.7% of the variance in caregiver’s quality of life. The results of the study make a contribute to community health nurses to understanding of the relationships between caregivers’ health status, hardiness, and quality of life in caregivers. These findings could also serve as indices for nursing practice, education, and research to enhance quality of life in community caregivers further. Community health nurses should regard caregiver as a client. Use of the「The Health Related Hardiness Scale (HRHS)」to assess the hardiness of caregivers can augment the development of individual nursing interventions and encourage caregivers to make more active use of resources actively. Moreover, we can manage and improve caregivers’ health status, and enhance the quality of life of the caregivers.