Background & Aims

The prevalence of chronic non-cancer pain is high among community-dwelling older adults. Pain is associated with significant physical and psychosocial incapacities. Due to physical vulnerability and immobility caused by chronic pain, older adults have decreased self-care ability and are at a high risk of falls. This create a huge responsibilities of their care-givers.

Caring responsibilities include providing help with daily activities and exercises to relieve pain symptoms, and communicating with and providing emotional support to the older adults. (1) Family members and carers have stated that it can be difficult to communicate with older adults with chronic non-cancer pain or to encourage them to participate in various non-pharmacological strategies for managing pain. And there are a lot of stress in the caring process.

We would like to explore the caregiver burden of carers and provide services accordingly.

Methods

Managers of elderly community centers were approached, and their members, who are the informal care-givers for older adults with chronic pain, were invited to complete a questionnaire (using Caregiver burden inventory).

The Caregiver Burden Inventory (2) comprises 24 items measuring five dimensions of burden related to the caregiving role. These are: 1) time-dependence; 2) developmental burden; 3) physical burden; 4) social burden; and 5) emotional burden. Participants were asked how often each statement describes their feelings on a scale ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (nearly always).

Results

There were 150 informal caregivers completed the questionnaire. The mean age was 41, there were 101 female and male 49 male. Majority (76%) of them were single. And there were either son or daughter of the older adults. Their educational level were quite high, with 87% had college degree or higher, and 47% of them graduated from secondary school.

The caregiver burden mean score was 4.18 over 16. The subcategories analysis reviewed highest score in physical burden, followed by emotional and social burden.

Conclusions

In the process of designing educational program for older adults with chronic pain, health care professions and policy makers should also look into the caregiver burden of informal carers. Their physical and emotional burden were high. Training and support in these domain should be provided accordingly.

References

1. Hiel, L., Beenackers, MA, Renders, CM, Robroek, SJ, Burdorf, A. & Croezen, S. Providing personal informal care to older European adults: Should we care about the caregivers’ health? Preventive Medicine, 2015; 70, 64–68.

2. Bittner, V., Weiner, D. H., Yusuf, S., Rogers, W. J., McIntyre, K. M., Bangdiwala, S. I., . . . Guillotte, M. Prediction of mortality and morbidity with a 6-minute walk test in patients with left ventricular dysfunction. JAMA, 1993; 270(14), 1702-1707.

Presenting Author

Prof Mimi Tse

Poster Authors

Mimi Mun Yee Tse

Phd

Hong Kong Metropolitan University

Lead Author

E-mail

Topics

  • Pain in Special Populations: Elderly