Iran J Psychiatry Behav Sci. 2018 June; 12(2):e9311. Published online 2018 February 19. doi: 10.5812/ijpbs.9311. Original Article Family Caregivers Burden and its Related Factors Among Iranian Elderly Psychiatric Patients’ Caregivers Azar Ramezani, 1,2 Hamideh Azimi Lolaty, 1,* Farideh Bastani, 3 and Hamid Haghani 4 1 Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Research Center, Addiction Institute, Department of Psychiatry, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran 2 School of Nursing and Midwifery, Department of Community Health Nursing and Department of Geriatric Nursing, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 3 Department of Geriatric Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 4 Department of Biostatistics, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran * Corresponding author: Hamideh Azimi Lolaty, Assistant professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Research Center, Addiction Institute, Department of Psychiatry, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran. Tel: +98-1133350602, Fax: +98-1133368915, E-mail: hamidehazimi@gmail.com Received 2016 October 09; Revised 2017 April 17; Accepted 2018 January 08. Abstract Background: Providing care for an old person with a psychiatric disorder is a long-term and stressful process exerting negative outcomes on the caregivers’ physical, psychological, and social health. Objectives: The aim of the study was to determine the burden among family caregivers of psychiatric elderly and its related factors. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted on 200 elderly psychiatric patients via convenient sampling, referring to the zare teaching psychiatric hospital of Sari, Iran. The sampling lasted from June to mid-November, 2015. Two questionnaires of demograph- ics (the elderly and caregivers) and Zarit Burden Interview were used to collect the data. The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, such as independent t-test, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Scheffe Post Hoc test. Results: The results indicated that the mean of the caregivers’ age was 51.24 ± 12.16. Ninety-four percent of the caregivers were married, and 49% had higher diploma education. Sixty-seven percent reported average economic status. The findings showed 68% of caregivers came up with mild to severe burden. According to the demographics, the hours of care per week (P = 0.001) and having other psychiatric patients in the family (P = 0.006) were related to the burden. Conclusions: Significantly high caregivers’ burden can overshadow the risk of low quality of care the psychiatric elderly patients and expose their caregivers’ psychological health to danger. Thus, it seems that community-oriented interventions are required to reduce the burden and boost long-term quality of care by informal caregivers, such as patients’ families. Keywords: Burden, Elder, Family Caregivers 1. Background One of the most significant aspects of old people’s health is their mental health, deserving further attention (1). Of psychiatric diseases, whose outbreak increases with age, are cognitive, mood, and mental disorders, such as de- mentia, delirium, and depression disorders (2). The preva- lence of age-related psychiatric disorders varies. In Iran, according to the 2013 census, the prevalence of various el- derly period psychiatric disorders was reported as 23.6% (3). The elderly with psychiatric disorder were in need of daily activities being constantly supported and monitored by the caregivers (4). Family caregivers are considered as a part of the informal support system mainly in charge of the patient without receiving any financial reward (5- 8). Family caregivers are a vulnerable population and like the elderly, they require special attention (9). Besides bi- ological and physiological damage, stress and long-term caring impacts on the caregivers can result in fatigue (10, 11), and probably reduced job and social activities and dis- connected relationships with family and friends (12, 13). A study found that an old person’s physical ailment causes an increased financial burden, stress, and anxiety in the caregivers’ personal lives (14). Another study revealed that caring of psychiatric elderly patients leads to nuisances, such as personal life stress, losing one’s job, additional fi- nancial burden and feeling guilty for the caregivers, result- ing in the caregiving burden (15). Caregiving burden is covert in nature, meaning that the patient and the care- givers are both in pain and suffering and strongly need to be socially understood and supported (16). The mental dis- order type, its duration and severity, the caregiving period, the incidence of problematic behaviors on the patient’s side, lowered social protection and negative feelings can bring about further burden and lower quality of life (17, 18). Copyright © 2018, Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited.