Korean J Fam Pract. 2017; 7(2): 286-292  https://doi.org/10.21215/kjfp.2017.7.2.286
Depression Level among Family Caregivers of Hospice Patients
Joon Ho Choi, Byung Chul Shin, Hee Eun Shin, Tae Hun Lee, Hyo Rim Son*
Department of Family Medicine, Gwangju Veterans Hospital, Gwangju, Korea
Hyo Rim Son
Tel: +82-62-602-6267, Fax: +82-62-602-6982
E-mail: dfms@bohun.or.kr
Received: March 12, 2016; Revised: August 30, 2016; Accepted: September 7, 2016; Published online: April 20, 2017.
© The Korean Academy of Family Medicine. All rights reserved.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background: Recently, there is national interest in improving medicine and quality of life in hospice settings. Patients receiving physical and mental treatment and their family members will require systematic and comprehensive care, including social treatment. In this study, we investigated depression levels and associated factors in family caregivers.
Methods: The survey was conducted based on data from 75 family caregivers of patients hospitalized at the hospital from October 2015 to February 2016. The questionnaire consisted of items regarding general characteristics of the subjects, the Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI), which was used to evaluate depression levels, and Apgar scores of family members, which was used to evaluate function.
Results: The mean age of participants was 58.7 years. Forty-one participants (54.7%) were the patient’s spouse. The mean±standard deviation BDI score was 14.6±7.1 points and 18.7 percent of the participants were suggested to have depression (≥21 points). Depression levels were related to the income (P<0.000) and caregiving hours per day (P<0.001).
Conclusion: About 20 percent of the family caregivers were suggested to have depression. Depression levels were influenced by the burden of caregiving and income. There is a need to improve these factors using training programs, which would enable the patients’ families to reduce their patient care burden by sharing the role of caregiver or by improving other factors affecting depression.
Keywords: Hospice; Family; Caregiver; Depression
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