Abstract

ROMERO MASSA, ELIZABETH; MONTALVO PRIETO, AMPARO  and  FLOREZ TORRES, INNA. Characteristics of care takers for children with complex congenital heart defects and the quality of life of the former. av.enferm. [online]. 2010, vol.28, n.1, pp.39-50. ISSN 0121-4500.

Objective: establish the relation between the characteristics and quality of life of family care takers of children with congenital heart defects. Method: cross-sectional analytical study. Quality of life was measured using the instrument proposed by Ferrell et al. (1997), "Measuring quality of life of a family member who provides care to a patient". Care takers were characterized through the survey called "Characterization of care takers", designed by the Chronic Patient Care Group of Colombia's National University. To estimate the association between the characteristics of care takers and the dimensions of quality of life, the confidence interval analysis was used, considering a significant average difference where the confidence interval does not go through 0. Results: there was participation of 91 main family care takers of children with congenital heart defects of the city of Cartagena. Results include the association between the characteristics of care takers and the four welfare aspects that assess quality of life according to Ferrel. The characteristics that show a greater association with the dimensions of quality of life were: age, socio-economic level, care time and being the sole care taker. Conclusions: when associating care takers' characteristics with their quality of life, it was found that socio-economic level and being the sole care taker have a close correlation with the psychological wellbeing reported, while being the sole care taker is associated significantly with social dimension.

Keywords : quality of life; caregivers; heart defects; congenital; child.

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