Assessment of Care Giver Burden and Coping Strategies among Care Givers of Elderly

Introduction: Caregiver burden is experienced by a person who is taking care of a disabled orchronically ill, and an old age person in the family. Many caregivers experience burdens and usingvarious coping strategies in their day-to-day life. Objectives: The objective of the study was toassess the burden, coping strategies, correlation and association among care givers of elderly withtheir selected demographic variables. Methods: By using convenient sampling technique 303caregivers were recruited in the selected villages of Bardoli, Gujarat. After obtaining writtenconsent caregivers was interviewed. The data was collected on Elderlies and Caregiver’s socio-demographic data, Zarit Caregiver Burden Assessment and Brief COPE tools. Results: Most ofthem 181 (66.0%) caregivers had moderate level of burden and 92(30%) had high burden and only30 (10%) of care giver had mild burden. The 10% of the samples had low levels of coping, 30%high levels, and 60% of them with medium levels of coping orientation towards the elderly care.There was moderately positive correlation found between caregiver burden and coping strategies.There was a significant association between care giver burden with their age, care giver relationand time given of care giving. The study revealed that there was a significant association betweencare giver coping orientation with their age and occupation. Conclusion: The caregiver’s burden ismore common among caregivers who care for elderly. Caregivers had been found by using avoidantcoping strategies more than problem oriented coping strategies. The Caregiver burden and itsimpact with various coping strategies need to be explored in detail and measures need to be taken toreduce their burden.