TERTIARY HEALTH FACILITY IN BENIN CITY, EDO STATE

This study assessed the burden of care as a predictor of quality of life among care givers of hypertensive patients attending a tertiary health facility in Benin City, Edo State. A cross sectional survey was conducted with 195 caregiver-patient pairs with data collected using structured questionnaires, the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), and the WHO Quality of Life-BREF(WHOQoL-BREF) instrument that assessed their demographic characteristics, burden of care among caregivers, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of caregivers and hypertensive patients, and the factors associated with burden of care among caregivers. The findings revealed thatabout 56.4% of caregivers experienced a high level of burden, with a mean ZBI score of 44.07(SD = 6.30), and 13.8% reported severe burden. Moreso, having no formal education (compared to tertiary education) was associated with significantly lower odds of experiencing a higher burden of care (OR = 0.362, 95% CI [0.148, 0.885], p = 0.026). Furthermore, caregivers who desired to continue caregiving (compared to not desiring to continue) were significantly more likely to report a high burden of care (OR = 2.431, 95% CI [1.297, 4.556], p = 0.006). Additionally, multivariate analysis examining the relationship between quality of life domains and the likelihood of experiencing a high burden of care revealed that reporting a low psychological quality of life (compared to high psychological QoL) significantly increased the odds of high burden (OR = 6.474, 95% CI [1.369, 30.616], p = 0.018), and reporting a low environmental quality of life (compared to high environmental QoL) also significantly increased the odds of high burden (OR = 6.168, 95% CI [1.069, 35.596], p = 0.042). However, the study concluded on the need for targeted caregiver education, psychosocial support, and strategies to improve patient adherence to mitigate caregiver burden and enhance their quality of life