| Description |
As of now, literature regarding caregiver burden is mainly surrounded around patients with Alzheimer's and dementia. The role of a caregiver can be an enormous responsibility, with duties including making decisions about the patient's future, making sure those decisions are the values and wants of the patient, and supporting them physically, mentally and/or emotionally. In order to better understand the quality of life for support persons, this project will examine topics that are lacking in literature right now. This project aims to measure the quality of life of support persons who care for older adults with major psychiatric problems, to identify the differences and similarities of quality of life between the patient and support person dyads and to examine the differences that arise in genders in the support persons. With a series of questionnaires filled out by both the support person and their patient, the study will compare the quality of life of this pairing between 15 control dyads with no psychological problems or conditions, and 30 experimental dyads where the patient has some form of psychological problem or health condition. This is significant because it may reveal the quality of life of the support person role, which could be utilized to possibly improve this role in the future. The results of the study could be used to pinpoint the most difficult aspect of being a support person or a patient, which could then be used to alter these roles and make it easier on both individuals in the pairing. Since dyads of a support person and a patient are so commonplace across the world, with most patients having some sort of supportive person or relationship, this study is very important in order to get a better view of the quality of life of both the patient and the support person. |
