Caring for the carer: quality of life and burden of female caregivers

To assess the quality of life and the burden of female caregivers. Descriptive, cross-sectional, quantitative study carried out with 224 informal caregivers from March to July 2016. Three instruments were used: a characterization form for the caregiver, the WHOQOL-Bref questionnaire and the Zarit Burden Interview. The following tests were used: Cronbach's Alpha, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Kruskal-Wallis, Spearman and Mann-Whitney. The mean age of caregivers was 51.8 years with a standard deviation of 13.7. They were predominantly married, had a low income and low level of education, were first-degree relatives, had been providing care for one to five years and presented some pathology. The associations of quality of life that presented statistical significance were: income, marital status, number of people living with the caregiver and time of care. The burden was negatively correlated with QOL, that is, the greater the burden, the more impaired will be the life of these caregivers.