Exploration of the Determinants and Relationship between Social Support and Quality of Life in the Primary Caregivers of Dementia Patients

• Main Authors: Yu-Jia Huang, 黃昱嘉
• Other Authors: I-Chen Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/82540356369845109506

碩士 === 高雄醫學大學 === 醫務管理暨醫療資訊學系碩士班 === 104 === Purpose： The study takes the disease characteristics of the care receivers getting Alzheimer’s disease and the characteristics of the caregivers as the control variables, and further explores the relationship between Social Support and Quality of Life (QoL) in the primary caregivers of dementia patients. First of all, the paper studies the current situation of Social Support of primary caregivers of dementia patients and the current situation of their Quality of Life (QoL). After that, the paper compares the difference of the disease characteristics of different care receivers, and the in the extent of social support of caregivers and their quality of life. Finally, the paper explores the relationship between the Social Support of caregivers and their Quality of Life (QoL). Methods： Our study adopts cross-sectional study, and the research tools are the social support questionnaire written by Xin-Yi Liu (2000) and Taiwan Brief Version of World Health Organization’s Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQoL-BREF). The paper employs descriptive statistics to describe the Social Support of interviewees and the distribution of their quality of life; and uses t-test and one-way ANOVA to compare the disease characteristics of different care receivers, and the difference in the extent of social support of caregivers and their quality of life. Finally, the paper uses multiple regression method to understand the relationship between the Social Support of caregivers and their Quality of Life (QoL). Results： The study’s research targets are the primary caregivers of the dementia patients of medical center in Southern Taiwan and participating in neuropsychological examination from March to June 2016. The total number is 111, and all of them are effective samples. The paper finally has these findings: the extent of need of information support would affect physical health; the extent of need of tangible support would affect psychological health; the assistance situation of tangible support would affect social relationship; the extent of sufficiency of tangible support would affect the environment and overall quality of life; the extent of sufficiency of emotional support would affect all the aspects of quality of life (including physical health, psychological health, social relationship, environment, overall situation); and all of them have positive effects. Conclusions and Suggestions： As proved from the research results of the study, emotional support is a factor under social support affecting the quality of life of caregivers, but it is also a key point that can be easily neglected. Although the related organizations and groups have many emotional support courses or teams, they are not as good as the companionship and encouragement of the people around them. Since the study has not collected many samples, the extrapolation of the study is not sufficient. Besides, this is a cross-sectional study, so that it is hard for the study to touch upon the effects or confounding factors between social support and quality of life. Therefore, these parts need to be further explored in subsequent studies. Keywords: the primary caregivers of dementia, social support, quality of life (QoL)