Psychosocial Effects on Caregivers of Persons Living with Alzheimer’s Disease in Nairobi County, Kenya

Alzheimer’s is a disease that has ravaged the population albeit silently. A major problem is that it requires close observation by care givers, yet there are very few that have trained in the profession leading to a stressful overload on the few caregivers. The purpose of this study was to determine the psychosocial effects of Alzheimer’s Disease on the caregivers in Nairobi County, Kenya. Specifically, it aimed to examine the effect of personal characteristics, determine the effect of income level and investigate the effect of social support on caregivers of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. The study adopted a descriptive crossectional research design targeting the population of caregivers with a sample of 139 respondents for the study. The study was anchored on the Informal Caregiving Integrative Model (ICIM) and Care Stress and Burden Model (CSBM). Data collection was done using an online questionnaire with two tools including the Zarit Burden Interview and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) with analysis done through use of descriptive statistics and nonparametric tests. Results were presented using tables and charts. A non-significant association was found between age and caregiver burden (p = .183) as well as between age and depression (p = .389). Gender was also not significantly associated with caregiver burden (p = .658) or depression (p = .667). The nature of relationship was not associated with caregiver burden (p = .134) but was significantly associated with depression (p = .001). Income level was found to have a weak positive relationship with caregiver burden, but it was not significant (r = .136, p = .166). It was also found to have a weak positive relationship with depression which was nonsignificant (r =.116, p = .238). Social support was not found to be significantly associated with either caregiver burden (p = .068) or depression (p = .357).