Stress, Health-Related Quality of Life and Effectiveness of Stress-Relief Programmes on Primary Caregivers of Special Needs Students

• Main Authors: Jung Hu, 胡蓉
• Other Authors: Jin-Ding Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/76210989464045347597

碩士 === 國防醫學院 === 公共衛生學研究所 === 97 === Children with special needs are depending on caregivers who continually provide care. The pressure of care work does not allow to belittle, and will possibly to influence their quality of life. In the past, studies about caregivers of children with special needs were not being pay much attention to them, and most of the studies had concerned caregivers of adults or elderly with disabilities in Taiwan. The main purposes of the study were to understand the stress, health related quality of life and effectiveness of stress-relief programmes on caregivers of students with special needs. The study design divided two stages; the first stage conducted a cross-sectional survey by using a self-report questionnaire that includes Psycho Somatic Tension Relaxation Inventory (PSTRI) scale and World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF). There were 597 caregivers were recruited in the survey. The second stage conducted a non-randomized case-control and pretest-posttest design to evaluate the effectiveness of stress-relief programmes. Seventy-seven caregivers were recruited (case group=31, control group=46) in the study, which involved participation in one stress management workshop (case group only) and reading an education booklet on stress management of both groups. The results showed 23.8% of caregivers were in high risk of depressive stress and needed further medical consultation. The risk factors of depressive stress were the following six factors in multiple regression models: stress-other, self-perceived health status, stress from children’s interaction with people, experience of psychiatric consultation, stress from children’s behavioral problems and children’s parents. With regard to predictive factors of quality of life, the regression model revealed that the factors of stress from insufficient family support, self-perceived health status, household income and stress-other were significantly related to quality of life. The results also found that the stress-relief programme has positive effective on mental health management in case group. Finally, the study suggests the healthcare authority should continually enforce the mental health promotion for the caregivers of children with special needs in the future.