Burden among family caregivers of mechanically-ventilated patients

Abstract

The constant progress of medicine makes it possible to create safe and comfortable conditions for home treatment for mechanically ventilated patients with chronic respiratory failure. The specificity of such care presents caregivers with challenges related to many nursing and organizational activities. Caring for patients using respiratory therapy is associated with taking responsibility for its course, reorganising everyday life and changing the way of performing the current roles, including limiting social roles. Therefore, it requires caregivers to be able to cope with various, very often new tasks, which can be physically and mentally burdening. The burden of care is the entirety of experiences and difficulties that a family member encounters when caring for a loved one. The article aims to characterise the concept of the feeling of being burdened with care and to present a research review showing its specificity in the group of caregivers of mechanically ventilated patients in a home setting. Also, the study will present research reports indicating a group of factors that may increase this negative consequence of care. The risk factors include health deterioration in the mechanically ventilated person and the decreasing level of patient’s independent functioning, as well as factors associated with the mechanical ventilation used: the method of ventilation (invasive vs. non-invasive), longer time of using the ventilator per day and the total duration of mechanical ventilation as a treatment method. Moreover, the results of the research conducted so far indicate that the burden among caregivers of these patients may manifest in all spheres of life: emotional, cognitive, somatic and social.