Impact of care burden on caregivers of patients with mild Alzheimer's disease on mental resilience

Objective To explore the current status of mental resilience and its influencing factors in caregivers of patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) , so as to provide evidence for improving the quality of life and care level of the caregivers. Methods A total of 208 mild AD patients' caregivers in the neurology department of a Class Ⅲ Grade A hospital in Beijing were investigated with general information questionnaire, the Chinese version of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and the Caregivers Burden Inventory (CBI) .The influencing factors were analyzed with single factor analysis, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. Results The total score of the mental resilience of the caregivers of patients with mild AD was lower than the domestic norm. The difference in the mental resilience of caregivers with different genders, ages, duration of care, caring burden and caring assistance was statistically significant (P 0.05) . Otherwise, all of the other factors were correlated with the scores of CD-RISC and all dimensions of it (P<0.05) . Regression analysis showed that the influencing factors of caregivers' burden on resilience could explain 54.5% of the total variation of the resilience. Conclusions The mental resilience of the caregivers of the patients with mild AD is generally low. Nurses should give different interventions according to the different levels of resilience and related factors, especially, more technical guidance and psychological support should be given to the caregivers with heavier burden. Key words: Alzheimer disease; Resilience, psychological; Caregivers; Burden