Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to investigate burnout among caregivers of patients with
chronic physical illness. In this study both quantitative and qualitative research
methods were used and data was collected from five different Govt. and non Govt.
hospitals with purposive sampling. In the quantitative phase, participants were 365
and in qualitative phase, number of participants was 10. Socio-demographic
questionnaire, Bangla form of Copenhagen Burnout Inventory and a topic guide were
used in the present study. Quantitative data was analyzed by SPSS-20 and qualitative
data was analyzed manually. Result shows that 28.2% caregivers of chronic physical
illness have burnout problem and personal burnout rate is high than work burnout and
client burnout. Significant differences of burnout have found between male and
female, formal and informal caregivers where female and informal caregiver burnout
rate is high than male and formal caregivers. The result also shows that there are
significant differences of burnout among caregivers of six chronic diseases and also
by care giving duration. Result also highlights some important contributory factors
like lack of financial support, work overload, limited social life, irregular daily
activity, worry about patient etc. On the other hand, some significant protective
factors have found like love for patient, hope for patients recovery, sense of
responsibility, religious belief, patients happiness, coping strategies etc. It can be
concluded that caregivers are an important part of care giving and they need special
attention to mitigate and prevent burnout problem.
