Bidang Kajian : Keluarga
Pelajar/Pengkaji Oleh: Khairul Anam Bin Md Yakup
Alamat Emel: kerolbah@gmail.com
Tarikh: 04/03/2021
Abstrak Kajian
Background: Caring for a child with disabilities (CWD) affects caregivers’ in multiple dimension such as physical, social, personal and financial aspects to name some. Therefore, this study to explore the strains among caregivers of CWD at the Community Based Rehabilitation Centres (CBR) in Sabah. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 142 caregivers of CWD at the CBR centre. Self-administered questionnaire, which is The Malay Version of Modified Caregiver Strain Index Questionnaire (M-CSI-M) was used in this study. Results: Majority of the caregivers shows they have moderate strain (n=103, 72.5%) and 16 (11.3%) respondents were experiencing high strain while 23 of them have no strain (16.2%). Among the negative statement issues relating to upsetting behaviour (n=15, 10.6%), financial strain (n=13, 9.2%) and overwhelmed (n=13, 9.2%) was identified as leads to their strains. On the other hands, physical (n=106, 74.6%), family adjustment (n=103, 72.5%), work adjustment (n=102, 71.8%) and child seems to be different person (n=103, 72.5%) was not found to be affecting the caregivers. Further exploration on the mean score of M-CSI-M found significant differences with the reference to the caregivers’ level of education, income and types of child disabilities since the p-value is less than 0.05. The highest mean score was those who had bachelor’s degree or higher, 13.71 (SD=7.158). The mean M-SCI-M scores with regards to average income is as follows the highest mean score represented those who were earning more than rm3.001 (M=11.00, SD=9.460) and the lowest score was for the caregivers that have no income (M=3.92, SD=3.799). The highest mean M-SCI-M scores with regards to their child types of disabilities was represented from multiple disabilities (M=10.65, SD=4.931) and the lowest score was from speaking disabilities (M=2.00, SD=3.082). Conclusion: Majority of caregivers were found to have moderate level of strain. Furthermore, there was a significant difference for caregivers’ level of strain with caregivers and child demographic data, where it were caregiver level of education, average income and types of child disabilities. Caregiver perceived that lead to strain such as emotional adjustment, financial strain and overwhelmed also should be considered as there are crucial part of the interdisciplinary team. Thus, the caregiver’s wellbeing is important to be exploring in order to enhance their effectiveness as team player in rehabilitation for CWD.