Introduction: Carers in children’s homes encounter challenges in dealing with the children’s behavioural and emotional problems. This may lead to burden and burnout among carers.
Aim: The objectives of this study were to determine the burden and burnout among carers in selected
children’s homes. The correlation between them and the children’s behavioural and emotional
problems were measured.
Method: This was a comparative cross-sectional study among three governments’ (40 carers) and 11 private children’s homes (40 carers) in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Pahang. Assessments were carried out using the Maslach Burnout Inventory- General Survey (MBI-GS), Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) for the carers and Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) for the children. Result: Carers at both types of homes showed high levels of burnout. Majority of the carers from both types of homes had a mild to moderate burden of 52.5% and 47.5% respectively. Children at government homes had more behavioural problems. Carers at both homes showed significant association but a low correlation between several MBI-GS domains with several SDQ domains. There was significant association but a low correlation of ZBI score with total difficulties and emotional problems in private homes. Simple and multiple logistic regression did not reveal significant findings.
Conclusion: Carer’s burden and burnout levels are high in children’s homes even though they were not significantly contributed by the children’s behavioural and emotional problems.
Keywords: burden, burnout, carers, behavioural problems, emotional problems, children, children’s hom
