The association of stress-coping variables to quality of life among caregivers of individuals with traumatic brain injury

STRESS REPLACEMENT ARTICLE


I chose this article because I wanted to know the effects that treating someone after a traumatic brain injury has on the caregiver. There has been tons of research over the past few decades that have found negative outcomes for those caring for these people. Such negative outcomes include depression, anxiety, burden, financial stress, poor social adjustment, and increased drug and alcohol use. The purpose of this study was to determine the degree at which stress-coping variables contribute to the quality of life of those caregivers caring for someone with a TBI. They sampled 108 predominantly white females where they were given the MCAS(The Modified Caregiving Appraisal Scale) to determine there caregiving experience. It was measured on three different scales: perceived caregiving burden, perceived caregiving satisfaction, and perceived caregiving mastery. The researcher also gave the Patient Rating Competency Scale to the care recipient to measure their competency. Other tests were also given such as the COPE to test for cognitive and behavioral strategies the caregiver uses to meet the demands of the situation, the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List to assess perceived social support, and the Family Needs Questionnaire that was used to measured the caregivers family needs after the brain injury. The results indicated strong relationships between every stress-coping variable and QOL(Quality of Life) except emotion-focused coping and health needs. The model showed that functional competency, caregiving appraisal, coping, perceived social support and family needs are important factors that can protect the caregivers from higher levels of stress. This goes to show that an effective stress coping model would be beneficial to caregivers of TBI and will increase there QOL.

Chronister, J., Chan, F., Sasson-Gelman, E., & Chiu, C. (2010). The association of stress-coping variables to quality of life among caregivers of individuals with traumatic brain injury. NeuroRehabilitation, 27(1), 49-62. doi:10.3233/NRE-2010-0580



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