The purpose of research was to explore the factors relation to primary caregiver’s strain, social support, and quality of life of home-dwelling disabled elderly. The study’s design was cross-sectional and correlation. A total 152 subjects were selected from the Long-term Care Management Center (Public Health Bureau) of the Pingtung County Government, by systematic sampling. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data via a face to face interview. The questionnaire gave to the caregiver's included disabled elderly characteristics, caregiver characteristics, Caregiver Strain Index, Social Support, and quality of life scale (WHOQOL-BREF). The data was analyzed using SPSS 17.0 for Windows.
The major findings of this study were as follows：(1)using the Taiwanese WHOQOL-BREF the mean score of overall quality of life of caregiver 48.48 out of 80, in the domain of environment quality of life got the highest score(12.35), in the physical health domain quality of life got the lowest score(12.43). (2)The highest level of social reported was the essential support, the lowest score report was the informational support. (3) The caregiver strain measure that the mean score was 6.73, indication mild strain. (4) Home care services and strain were found to have a positive correlation. Social support and quality of life were also found to a positive correlation. Strain and quality of live found to negative correlation. (5)The most important predictive variables for the social support, strain, the income is from children, or economic and health of self-perceived that combine caregiver have bone or muscular disease of history, and disabled elderly. These variables explained 41.7% of the variance in caregivers quality of life.
