Abstract

The purpose of this study was to idntify relationships among family stress, family coping, level of family functioning and burnout in primaty caregivers of chronically ill children. The sample consisted of 119 families with chronically ill children at home, who were aged 3 month to 17 years. A structured qeustionnaire including The Burnout Measure (Pines & Ironstone 1981), modified Family Coping Behavior Inventory II, and Family Stress Measure was used to collect the data from primary caregivers at the outpatient clinic of a university hospital. The burnout scores were divided into two groups : at risk for burnout (over 3.0), and healthy (under 2.9). The Wilcoxson test was used to examine differences between the two groups. The results were : 1) The group at risk for burnout showed a significantly higher family stress score, instrumental coping score and endurance coping score than the healthy group. 2) The group at risk for burnout registered a significantly lower normalization coping score and level of family functioning than the healthy group. These results indicate that the group at risk for burnout needs support to alleviate family stress and to facilitate normalization of coping and of the level of family function.