Aspectos psicológicos en cuidadores formales de ancianoscarga y afrontamiento del estrés : (un estudio en población sociosanitaria)

Resumen

Nowadays, modern society issues the question of attend the requirements of caregivers who directly works with demented and ill-behaved elderly people. This doctoral dissertation introduces the transactional model as well as displays the relevance of certain intermediary and stress-modulator variables. Just the same, the professional context of stress occurrence, specifically the concept of burden, is revised. Likewise, the major disorders of elderly people are showed, alike, this study develops an analytical revision about types of carefulness, and too, certain epidemiological data about this are presented. Thus, the main characteristics of trigger factors, intermediary factors and stress consequences are underlined. The present doctoral dissertation issues the following goals: to confirm the statistically significant differences among caregivers; to find out, if any, the variables that should help to explain the caregivers� classification due to having obtained a high or low score in burden; and third, to study the relation among socio-demographic, job related and psychological variables, in a sample of 302 formal caregivers (women, 85,1%, and men, 12,9%) from 30 centers (28 cities of ten Spanish provinces). The average women age is 33,7371 years old, and that of men is 35,6410. About marital status, 43,7% are singles, and 46,7% have couples. The academic is distributed as follows: EGB (6,6%), FP-I (69,5%), bachelor�s degree or FP-II (6%), COU (3%), and University graduates (8,3%). The 58,3% of caregivers always take care of same group of elderly people. In order to reach these goals, different instruments have been used: Entrevista de Carga para Cuidadores Formales , Cuestionario de Salud General GHQ-28, Evaluación del Apoyo Social (SSA), Cuestionario COPE, Escala de Satisfacción Vital (ESV) y el Test de Orientación Vital Revisado. Several statistical techniques have been implemented to data análisis: a) In order to test groups differences, analysis of variance (ANOVA); b) In order to categorize variables in terms of relevant others: multiple discriminant analysis, and, c) In order to check the relations between variables: Pearson�s correlation. Differences about sex, public center, age, marital status, academic level, take care of other, seniority in the center, professional practice seniority, other incomes, chief town, number of workers, number of elders, always take care or not of the same group, selfperceived health and assistance at home. Moreover, this study shows: a) correlations among socio-demographic and job related variables; b) correlations among evaluated psychological variables (exception made of those obtained with COPE questionnaire) and socio-demographic and job related variables; c)correlations among subscales of COPE questionnaire and socio-demographic and job related variables; d) correlations among evaluated psychological variables (exception made of those obtained with COPE questionnaire); e) correlations among the COPE questionnaire subscales and the rest of evaluated psychological variables; and f) correlations between the different COPE questionnaire subscales. Finally, the categorization results of variables in terms of relevant others are showed. In order to do that, the global introduction method and stepwise method were used. Definitively, with respet to the emotional burden, higher levels appear in formal caregivers who present worse states of general health, and in those who use passive facing strategies and are centered in emotion (avoidance, situation distracting activities, humor, and facing efforts drop-out). Notwithstanding, lower levels of emotional burden are referred to formal caregivers who call upon more vital satisfaction and social support. At the same time, the emotional burden is positively related to, general health and negatively with self-perceived health, social support and optimism.