Caregivers
are an essential component of any community. Advances in medical care have
brought about an increasing population which is reliant on care, and
communities deal with most of the burdens and practicalities of public health
issues. In order to provide efficient support services, we need to know
the challenges of caregivers so that we can address what types of support they
require. The current study examined whether those who had a mental
health difficulty and were either engaged in caregiving duties or perceive
family burden might be less adherent to their medications in comparison with
those who also had a mental health difficulty but did not perceive family
burden or perform caregiving.
Data used was from the National Comorbidity Study Replication
(NCS-R), which examined the mental health profile of the American
population. The group examined were those who received the family burden
interview, and indicated that they were taking a prescription medication for a
mental health difficulty under the supervision of a health professional (N = 489,
137 males and 352 females). The participants’ ages ranged from 18 - 93 years
old, with the mean age being 49.63 years old (SD = 16.44).
Zero inflated Poisson regression showed that caregiving/family
burden was unrelated to adherence to supervised prescription medicines for
mental health difficulties, regardless of the kinship of who was ill, or the
nature of their illness (physical versus mental). Adherence to prescription
medications for mental health difficulties did not appear to be one of the
challenges faced by this group. Findings were discussed in terms of the
economic and moral importance of health professionals identifying and
understanding the challenges experienced by caregivers/those reporting family
burden. This is necessary so that appropriate interventions and support
services can be targeted, and further research plays an important role in
achieving this objective.
Article by E. Ennis and C. Corry, from
University of Ulster, Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
Full access: http://mrw.so/1N8EtD
Image by Rajiv Mehta, from Flickr-cc.
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