A Study on Factors Influencing Dementia Management Strategies and Their relationships with Primary Caregivers' Burden

치매주간호자의 치매관리전략 영향요인과 부양부담 관계 연구

The impact of chronic diseases on patients and their families depends on how well the family members cope with it. Therefore, research on strategies for facilitating the coping of the families in a desirable manner is very important. Dementia management strategies refer to specific means families of dementia patients use to cope with dementing illness of their family members. This study was designed to examine type of dementia management strategies utilized by families and to identify factors influencing them. The subjects in this study were 103 conveniently selected demented patients and their primary caregivers who were registered to a public health center located in Chungcheong Province. The subjects were visited by 20 home visiting nurses, and the data were collected using a structured questionnaire. The data were collected form May 2, 2001 to June 2, 2001. The findings of this study were as follows. 1. The most frequently used types of dementia management strategies were active management (M=3.36, S.D=.96), and encouragement (M=2.94, S.D=.99). Criticism was least used type of dementia management strategy (M=2.71, S.D=.99). 2. The factors influencing each management strategy were as follows; 1) The criticism management strategy was most frequently used by the primary caregivers who graduated elementary school (F=3.21, p<.05). 2) The encouragement strategy was most frequently used by the primary caregivers in a case when the patients were in the mild stage of dementia (F=2.76, p<.05), when the patients never had any treatment experiences (F=2.01, p<.05), when the family could afford the provision of treatment for the patients (F=-2.44, p<.050), and when the primary caregiver had a job (t=2.90, p<.01). 3) The active management strategy was most widely used by the primary caregivers who could afford the provision of treatment for the patients (F=-2.31, p<.05) and were in their 70s (F=3.04, p<.05). This type of management strategy was significantly more used by those who discussed the difficulties of caring with their family members (F=3.46, p<.05). 3. The use of criticism management strategies was significantly correlated with the total level of burden of the primary caregivers. But the types of encouragement and active management strategies had negative correlations with the caregivers' burden although they were not significant. Since the findings of this study showed that the criticism management strategy had a significant positive relationship with caregivers' burden, those who are more likely to use the negative management strategy should be identified in future studies. The primary caregivers who are more likely to use negative strategy should be more closely monitored and be focused as the group who should be intervened in future studies.