Sobrecarga e qualidade de vida de cuidadores informais de crianças com paralisia cerebral

Abstract

Objective: to analyze the caregiver burden and the quality of life of informal caregivers of children with cerebral pal-s y.Methods: the cross-sectional survey involved 109 care-givers of children with cerebral palsy recruited from phys-iotherapy clinic at a tertiary hospital. The quality of life and caregiver burden were assessed using the Personal Wellbe-ing Index Scale and the Modified Caregivers’ Strain Index, re-spectively. Data were analysed using descriptive and infer-ential statistics. Results: the mean strain index and quality of life scores of the participants were 11.85 ± 5.72 and 64.68 ± 8.03 respectively. The majority (67.9%) of the caregivers had fair personal well-being, while about one-third (33.0%) had high caregiver’s strain. Child’s age (B=2.454; p<0.005) and caregivers’ occupation (B= -2.547; p=0.001) were pre-dictors of caregiver strain. Conclusion: caring for children with cerebral palsy imposed a substantial burden on the caregivers and child’s age and caregivers’ occupation were predictor variables.