Explore Factors Influencing Caregiver Burden on Family Caregivers of People with Neurocognitive Disorders in Penghu

Penghu has been aging faster than Taiwan as a whole and its young people are also moving out for work or study, further exacerbating the problems of aging families and elderly-for-elderly care. Few studies have explored how the family functioning and caregiving burden of aging families relate to caregivers' depressive symptoms in Taiwan's offshore islands. The research with cross-sectional study design was applied in this study. The participants consisted of caregivers of people with neurocognitive disorders who accompanied them to seek outpatient treatment at two hospitals in Penghu. 148 valid responses were collected from November 2016 to January 2017. The IBM SPSS Statistics 20 software was used for data analysis. This study aimed to explore the relevant factors influencing burden on family caregivers of people with neurocognitive disorders. Research results: The correlations between caregivers' demographic variables and their caregiving burden were expressed as Pearson correlation coefficients. The results indicated that being female, non-employment of foreign care workers, and poor self-perceived health status correlated positively with caregiving burden. Based on the CES-D scale, 62.8% of caregivers had depressive symptoms, which correlated positively with the caregiving burden. 54% of them lacked family functioning, which correlated negatively with caregiving burden and depressive symptoms; while the depressive symptoms correlated positively with social resource usage. The linear regression analysis results showed that depressive symptoms had the strongest explanatory power for the caregiving burden, followed by self-perceived health status. Conclusion: The higher the caregivers' depressive symptoms, the higher their needs for social resource usage. However, their social resource usage cannot reduce their caregiving burden effectively. Therefore, improving the caregivers' health status, family functioning, and information access will be beneficial for reducing their burden and depressive symptoms. The results of this study could be used by health authorities to formulate policies for long-term care and family nursing.