Health Related Quality of Life of Primary Caregivers of Persons with Tetraplegia Attending at a Specialized Rehabilitation Centre in Bangladesh

Abstract

Abstract Study design: The study design was cross-sectional. Objective: Assessment of the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of primary caregivers of people with tetraplegia owing to traumatic SCI. Setting: A total of 48 samples were selected conveniently for this study from the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP), spinal cord injury unit, at Savar. Methods: Data was collected by using a questionnaire, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was assessed by the Short Form-36 (SF-36) health survey questionnaire. Descriptive statistics using SPSS software version 16.0 were used for data analysis, which focused on columns, pie charts, and doughnuts. Results: Among 48 caregivers evaluated, 39 (81.2%) were female and 9 (18.8%) were male, where 22 people (45.8%) were either husbands or wives and 15 people (31.2%) were parents of people with tetraplegia. It was found that most of the caregivers (62.5%) spend about 13–18 hrs/day caring for individuals with tetraplegia. The participants reported lower scores on social functioning and emotional well-being than the other dimensions of SF-36. Conclusion: Primary caregivers of spinal-cord injury patients had low scores on all SF-36 aspects, including social functioning and emotional well-being. Sponsorship: This does not include funding from grants or other sources.