| Summary: | 碩士 === 長庚大學 === 護理學系 === 103 === The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between health related quality of life and biological indicators (Interleukin-6, IL-6 &; Ferric-Reducing Ability of Plasma, FRAP test) for family caregivers of patients with dementia. This study used a secondary analysis approach to analyze data from 33 family caregivers with information on biological indicators from a larger study at neurological clinics of a medical center in Northern Taiwan.
The results of the study show that all family caregivers in this study had depressive symptoms. Among them, 42.4% moderate depressive symptoms and 57.6% had severe depressive symptoms. In terms of the IL-6 (normal range &;lt; 9.7pg/ml), all the family caregivers (100%) had normal IL6, indicating that all family caregivers were not likely to have conditions of inflammation and infection. For FRAP (normal range 0.50-0.97μmole/L), 52% of the family caregivers had normal level of FRAP, and 48% had lower level of FRAPs, indicating around half of the family caregivers had normal level of total anti-oxidant capacity. However, the biological indicators (IL-6 &; FRAP) of family caregivers did not correlate with the gender, age, marital status, education levels, illness for years, total number of diseases, dementia severity, and cognitive function of dementia patients, and neither the family caregiver’s age, marital status, education levels, the relationship with patients, the numbers of children under 18, cohabit condition, the number of hours of care per week, having paid care assistant, and depressive symptoms. It is only found that the level of FRAP of male family caregiver was higher than female (β=.096, p=.001), indicating better total antioxidant capacity. The gender of family caregivers was able to explain 32.4% of the variance in FRAP.
The reasons for not finding significant correlations between predictors and the biological indicators might be due to the lack of sensitivity of current biological indicators and small sample size in this study. Future studies using more appropriate indicators and larger sample sizes are suggested. Based on this study, although most patients in this study were with mild dementia, their family caregivers had moderate to severe depressive symptoms. Suggestions for health care and social care providers to support and provide services to family caregivers of patients including those with mild dementia are suggested.
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