To date, there have been only few studies which investigated the situation of care for the elderly and caregiver burden in China. We performed a structural interview with 172 frail elderly and their caregivers, in pairs, in Shenyang City, China, after explaining the purpose of our study and obtaining consent. The interview was comprised of the Chinese version of the Zarit Caregiver Burden Inter view (ZBI) questionnaire, Activities of Daily Living (ADL) questionnaire and questions on the char acteristics of the elderly and his/her caregiver. Responses from 150 elderly-caregiver pairs (87%), sufficient for analysis, were collected. Caregivers with high burden were defined as those who scored 51 points or more out of 88 points (66l or higher) on the ZBI. There were significant differences in ADL of frail elderly, caregiver's age, average number of hours of caregiving per day and elderly-caregiver relationship between caregivers with and without high burden from x 2 analysis. Using a multi variate logistic regression, we found that caregiver burden was associated with ADL of frail elderly, caregiver's age and elderly-caregiver relationship. The results of this study showed that ADL of frail elderly, caregiver's age, average daily hours of care provided and relationship between elderly and their caregivers affect burden among caregivers in China.