Objective:

To evaluate the relationship between sociodemographic and care characteristics with the burden of the primary caregivers of the elderly with severe dependence.

Methodology:

Crosssectional correlational study on a consecutive sample of 43 primary caregivers of severely dependent seniors belonging to the Home Care Program of a Family Health Center of Chile. To assess the level of overload, the Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale was used, and sociodemographic and care variables were recorded. The data collection was done by home visits. Descriptive statistics were applied, and to analyze the relationship between the variables, the Chi-square and Fisher’s Exact Test were applied. In all cases the level of significance considered was p<0.05. The data was analyzed with the statistical software SPSS v. 23.

Results:

69,77% of the caregivers presented burden. The average age was 58,33 + 12,98 years, and the highest percentage were women with 74,42% and 46,51% were single. 86,05% of the main caregivers cared 24 hours to the elderly and 55,91% were sons or daughters. The abandonment of an activity by care reached a statistically significant difference with the presence of caregiver overload (p<0,05).

Conclusions:

Public Politics should support caregivers in this activity, in order to reduce the burden, thus improving their quality of life and health status.

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