| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 護理學系 === 104 === Most patients with dementia have been living in community and taken care by families. Therefore, it is relatively important to understand whether family caregivers are competent to take care of patients with dementia. In addition, caregivers’ perception of their health status and the attitudes toward caregiving affect their care quality. The purposes of this study were to explore the current situation of family caregiving competence and the relationship between patients with dementia and their family caregivers’ characteristics, attitudes toward caregiving, self-perceived health status and caregiving competence. The study was a cross-sectional and correlational study. Purposive sampling in outpatient departments of specialist hospitals in Southern Taiwan was used with structured questionnaires to recruit 143 dyads of patients with dementia and their family caregivers. The findings showed that dementia specific medication taking, caregiver’s education level, economic status, and social service usages had significant impact on caregiving competence. After controlling the demographic variables, self-perception of health and the attitudes toward caregiving explained 7.8% of variance in caregiving competence totally. Self-perception of health and the attitudes toward caregiving affect caregivers’ competence. Therefore, the results suggest that future interventions should put more emphasis on caregivers’ competence and related factors to improve dementia care quality at home.
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