The Resilience of Elderly Caregivers in the Corona Crisis

Introduction: The disease caused by the new corona virus in 2019, known as Covid-19, is an infectious disease that has caused many deaths due to the development of acute respiratory syndrome in people. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that nearly 8 out of 10 deaths from COVID-19 reported in the United States have been in people 65 and older. Resilience has been defined as a person's ability to create biological and psychological balance in risky conditions and considered as a kind of self-reconstruction with emotional, emotional and cognitive consequences. Due to the very important role that family caregivers have in the treatment of elderly patients with Covid-19, attention to their health and well-being has also increased as informal caregivers. Considering that no study has been conducted in the city of Mashhad during the Corona crisis to investigate the resilience of elderly caregivers, the findings of this study can help nurses and other health care providers to use the resilience model or model Similar methods should be used to improve the tolerance level of elderly caregivers at home during home quarantine.This study was conducted with the aim of determining the resilience of elderly caregivers in the Corona crisis. Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 120 elderly caregivers who referred to urban health centers in Mashhad . Sampling was done as cluster random sampling in 1401. Using the parameters of Mahdieh et al.'s study , the sample size was calculated to be 102, which was finally considered to be 120 samples by taking into account the loss and increasing the accuracy. First, from the urban health centers of different areas of Mashhad city (center number one, center number two, center number three, second center and center number five), people who meet the criteria for entering the study were selected and after checking the demographic information considered for the study in the file of the elderly The questionnaire was completed over the phone and with the informed consent and confidentiality of the information of the person and their caregivers.The inclusion criteria for the present study were: the age of the elderly under care is 60 or older, the informed consent of the elderly and their caregiver, the care of one to two elderly caregivers, the age of the caregiver between 18 and 60 years, the absence of the caregiver suffering from a debilitating physical disease or disorder. Psychiatric, non-use of psychoactive drugs by the caregiver, absence of and history of the elderly suffering from the disease of Covid-19 according to the statements of the elderly caregiver. Exclusion criteria from this study included suffering from a debilitating disease during the study, unwillingness to continue cooperating with the researcher, or failure to complete the questionnaires. The tool for collecting information was a two-part questionnaire including demographic information Age of elderly and caregiver, gender of caregiver, education of caregiver, employment of caregiver, marital status and ratio of caregiver to elderly  and Connor and Davidson resilience questionnaire. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 23 software and using descriptive and inferential statistics. At the descriptive level, mean and standard deviation were used to measure research variables. The assumptions of the research included the skewness and kurtosis test for the normality of the distribution of scores. At the inferential level, Pearson's correlation coefficient, independent t test or one-way analysis of variance were used to investigate the relationships between variables. Findings: The mean and standard deviation of the age of caregivers and elderly under care were 39.94±1.32 and 74.44±3.17, respectively. The minimum and maximum ages for caregivers were 20 and 74 years and for the elderly under care were 89 and 60 years. The results showed that the average endurance of caregivers participating in this study is 49.40±13.07, which is considered low. Also, there was a significant relationship between resilience scores with education (P>0.05), marriage (P>0.001) and employment (P>0.05). Married people had more resilience compared to single or bereaved people. Retired people had the most resilience compared to others. Caregivers of employees also had higher scores in resilience compared to other types of employment, and unemployment had the worst average scores. The correlation coefficient between caregivers' resilience variables with caregiver age (r=0.17) and elderly age (r=0.13) was negative but weak. Conclusion: The results of the present study showed that family or informal caregivers caring for elderly people in Mashhad did not have high resilience. Also, this research identified and revealed the factors related to resilience, including the level of education, type of employment, marital status, which can help health care providers to understand resources effective on resilience and care plans for the development of resilience and Of course, improving the quality of life of the elderly will help. The results showed that the family caregivers of the elderly in Mashhad had a low level of resilience Having a government job, especially during the Corona crisis, which caused the business of some independent businesses to decline, but government employees still had their regular salaries, as well as financial independence and a stable financial situation due to receiving a pension or retirement, provides peace of mind and increases resilience. It seams The effect of job and financial status on the resilience of caregivers who care for the elderly is different in different cultures and societies. Usually, retired people or employees have experienced less stress and report higher resilience due to having a fixed level of income and adapting their lives to this income. Caregivers with more education usually have high social relations and have personal and social resources, and when facing problems, they can help increase resilience by increasing interactions.