Care Burden and Coping Strategies among Caregivers of Paediatric HIV/AIDS in Northern Uganda: A Cross-Sectional Mixed-Method Study

Abstract

Background. Family caregivers provide the bulk of care to children living with HIV. +is places an enormous demand and care burden on the caregivers who often struggle to cope in various ways, some of which may be maladaptive. +is may adversely affect their quality of care. Very little literature exists in resource-limited contexts on the burden of care experienced by caregivers on whom children living with HIV/AIDS depend for their long-term care. We assessed care burden and coping strategies among the caregivers of paediatric HIV/AIDS patients in Lira district, northern Uganda. Methods. A mixed-method cross-sectional study was conducted among 113 caregivers of paediatric HIV patients attending the ARTclinic at a tertiary healthcare facility in Lira district, northern Uganda. A consecutive sampling method was used to select participants for the quantitative study, while 15 respondents were purposively sampled for the qualitative data. Quantitative data were collected using standard interviewer-administered questionnaires, while in-depth interview guides were used to collect qualitative data. Data were entered, cleaned, and analysed using SPSS version 23. Qualitative data were analysed thematically. Results. +emajority of the caregivers, 65.5% (74), experienced mild-to-moderate burden. +e mean burden scores significantly differed by caregivers’ age (P � 0.017), marital status (P � 0.017), average monthly income (P � 0.035), and child’s school attendance (P � 0.039). Accepting social support, seeking spiritual support, and reframing were the three most commonly used strategies for coping. Marital status and occupation were, respectively, positively and negatively correlated with information-seeking as a coping strategy, while monthly income was positively correlated with psychosocial support as a strategy. Seeking community support was negatively correlated with the duration of the child’s care. Conclusions. Our findings show that care burden is a common problem among the caregivers of children living with HIV in the study context.