The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the scale to measure dementia patient's caregiver burden of Korea. In the first phase of the study, 15 caregivers of dementia patients were interviewed to provide narrative data from which items were developed. Initially 65 items were generated from the interview data of 15 caregivers. Content validity was judged by two separate panels of experts with 27 professionals and 30 family caregivers. These items were analyzed through the Index of Content Validity and 33 items were selected which met .80 or more of the CVI. This preliminary FCBSD-K was tested with 207 adult caregivers for reliability and construct validity including item analysis and orthogonal(Varimax) factor analysis. Eight items were deleted because of high or low item-item correlation. The result of the second factor analysis produced six factors that coincided with the conceptual framework posed for the scale developed. The six factors were labeled as 'physio social factor' 'emotional factor' 'family cultural factor' 'role obligation' 'guilt feeling' and 'financial & supportive system factor'. The alpha coefficient relating to internal consistency was .9264 for reliability. In conclusion, cultural factor is related to dementia patient's caregiver burden and FCBSD-K was useful in assessing the dementia patient's caregiver burden in Korea.

This study examined burdens of primary family caregivers, and family functioning of patients with cancer. In addition, the relationship between two concepts was assessed to develop nursing intervention to reduce the burdens of caregiving, and to improve family functioning. Ninety-two primary family caregivers of patients with cancer at a general hospital in Seoul participated in this study. The patients with cancer aged from 19 to 84 years with a mean age of 51 years, and sixty-one percent were male. About 30 percent of the patients suffered liver and billiary tract cancer. Fifty-six percent of the primary family caregivers were spouses of the patients and 70.7 percent were women. Primary family caregivers' burdens were assessed by the Burden Scale originally developed by Zarit (1980) and Novak & Guest(1989) and modified by Jang (1995) for use in Korea. The instrument consists of six subscales: time-dependent burden, developmental burden, physical burden, emotional burden, social burden, and financial burden. Family functioning was assessed by the Family APGAR developed by Smilkstein(1978). The results were as follows: 1. The average burden score was 86.1, indicating a moderate level of burden. The time-dependent burden scored highest followed by developmental, physical, social, financial, and emotional burdens. The mean score of family APGAR was 9.71; among subjects 82.6% were included in dysfunctional families. 2. Of the characteristics of patients, age, gender, number of admissions, and job were found to be associated with the level of burden. There was no significant difference between patient characteristics and family functioning. Of the characteristics of primary family caregivers, caregiver's perception of patient prognosis was significantly related to the level of burden, and family functioning. Caregiver's sex and age were also related to family functioning. The quality of relationship between a patient and a caregiver was significant situational factors affecting the level of burden, and family functioning. In addition, the income of family, and help from other family members were related to the level of burden. Given the results, it is essential to develop nursing intervention to reduce burden and to improve family functioning, such as support groups.