Skip to main content

Table 1 Characteristics of caregivers and patients

From: Developing a scale to measure family dynamics related to long-term care, and testing that scale in a multicenter cross-sectional study

Variables

 

n (%) or mean ± SD

Family

  

Number of family members

2

81 (40.7)

 

3 or more

118 (59.3)

Caregiver

  

Sex

Female

157 (78.9)

 

Male

42 (21.1)

Age

 

63.2 ± 11.9

Kin relationship*

Spouse

53 (26.8)

 

Child

76 (38.4)

 

Daughter-in-law

29 (14.6)

 

Son-in-law

1 (0.5)

 

Sibling

5 (2.5)

 

Grandchild

2 (1.0)

 

Parent

32 (16.2)

Employed

 

67 (33.5)

Raising a child

 

21 (10.6)

Raising a grandchild

 

42 (21.1)

Assistant caregiver living together

 

86 (43.2)

Going to clinic regularly

 

127 (63.8)

Stress tolerance (self-reported)

Strong

19 (9.5)

 

Somewhat strong

81 (40.7)

 

Not very strong

74 (37.2)

 

Not strong at all

25 (12.6)

Subjective economic condition

Comfortable, not worrisome

19 (9.5)

 

Not very comfortable, but not worrisome

125 (62.8)

 

Not comfortable, slightly worrisome

48 (24.1)

 

Difficult to live, very worrisome

7 (3.5)

Years of caregiving

 

5.16 ± 4.73

Hours of caregiving per week

 

32.3 ± 39.1

Caregiver’s understanding of patient’s (medical) condition.

Understand it very well

78 (39.2)

 

Understand it to some extent

115 (57.8)

 

Don’t understand it well

6 (3.0)

 

Don’t understand it at all

0 (0.0)

Patient

  

Functional Independence Measure

 

33.9 ± 12.5

Functional Assessment Staging Test

 

3.59 ± 1.8

Services used

Home visit

75 (37.7)

 

Day care

69 (34.7)

 

All

117 (58.8)

  1. *The total is 198 rather than 199, because of one missing datum.