Prevalencia y caracterización de la sobrecarga del cuidador primario de pacientes al final de la vida.

Abstract

Introduction: The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of primary caregiver burden in patients at the end of life who attend the emergency department of this hospital and to determine their sociodemographic characteristics. Patients and methods: An observational, descriptive and prospective study was carried out, including 264 main caregivers of patients who were in the final phase of life, who received medical care for complications of their underlying condition in the emergency department of the General Hospital of Mexico “Dr. Eduardo Liceaga”, in a period of 6 months, from April 1, 2021 to September 31, 2021, with the following inclusion criteria: being the main caregiver, having a family relationship with the patient, voluntary participation, being more than 18 years old. The participants, after signing the informed consent, answered the demographic data questionnaires, the abbreviated Zarit scale, and the Katz scale. Within the multidimensional assessment of the terminally ill patient, the biological assessment is based on the functional status of the patient, to assess dependence on activities of daily living, the Katz index can be used. Results: A total of 264 primary caregivers were included, 187 (70,8░%) were female and 77 (29,2░%) were male; the minimum age was 18 years and the maximum was 80 years, with a median of 44 years; Of the total number of caregivers analyzed, 219 (83░%) presented caregiver collapse syndrome at the time of the interview. Of the subjects studied, 138 (52,3░%) were sole caregivers, of which more than half (57░%) suffered from caregiver collapse syndrome. Conclusions: In conclusion, we have found that the prevalence of caregiver collapse syndrome is higher than that reported in similar studies. According to the sociodemographic characteristics, we observed that the main risk factors are: gender, age of the caregiver, time of performing the role of caregiver, degree of kinship, number of caregivers and degree of dependency on basic activities of daily living.