Abstract

Introduction: Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases in old age. The informal caregivers of these patients undergo heavy care. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the educational program on care burden of informal caregivers of elderly with type II diabetes in 2016-2017. Materials and Methods: The present study was carried out according to the experimental purpose. In this study 80 out of 120 informal caregivers of elderly with diabetes who were referred to the Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Hospital in Ilam were selected by convenience sampling method and then randomly were placed in experiment and control groups. The experiment group received 8 sessions with 2 hours duration (face to face teaching and telephone follow-up) as intervention. The data were collected using two questionnaires: demographic and Zarit's Care before and after intervention. The collected data were analyzed by using statistical software SPSS 22 and descriptive and inferential statistical tests (covariance) at the significant level of 0.05. Results: The results showed that there was not a significant difference between the level of care burden of the experimental and control groups before intervention. Also, there was a significant difference between the care burden of the experimental group before and after the intervention (p=0.001). There was no significant difference between care burden of control group before and after intervention (p=0.2). Conclusion: According to the results, it can be concluded that the care burden of informal caregivers of elderly people with type II diabetes, after training intervention was significantly reduced. Therefore, this interventional program can be used to reduce the care burden of informal caregivers in this group of patients.