General Wellbeing of the Elderly and Perceived Caregiving Burden of their Family Caregivers in Ranchi District

The elderly in India accounted for 5.7% in 1990, estimated to reach 12.6% in 2020 with 13% of the total population. India will have the second largest greying population in the world by 2025.(Chadha&Easwasamoorthy, 1993). Majority of them 70% will be fully dependent on productive population with a need of economic support and responsible caregiving. The relationship of elders with their caregivers and the caregiving burden has emerged as a vital field of investigation affecting the psychology of everyday life. In this backdrop, the present study attempts to measure the general wellbeing of the elderly and perceived caregiving burden of their family caregivers. The study aims to assess the wellbeing of male and female elderly and see the impact of place of residence on their wellbeing. As the wellbeing of the elderly is directly related with the caregiving burden, the present study also attempts to measure the caregiving burden of their family caregivers. Data have been collected using PGI General Well Being Measure Verma, and Verma (2009) and Perceived Caregiving Burden Scale by Gupta (2007). Apurposive sample of 120 elderly, stratified randomly on the basis of gender (male/female) and place of residence (rural/urban) was taken for the study. It was found that rural female elderly scored more on Well Being Measure than their male counterpart, urban females also scored higher than the males. On total Wellbeing Measure the female sample had a better wellbeing than the male. As far as the caregiving burden is concerned, it was found negatively correlated with the wellbeing of the elders. Higher the wellbeing lower was the perceived caregiving burden. Urban caregivers perceived fewer burdens than the rural ones. In both settings, feeling of entrapment was highest perceived burden, followed by financial and sense of abandonment. The study recommends improvement in the wellbeing of the elderly for minimising the caregiving burden.