Life worth living for caregiving and caregiver burden among Japanese caregivers of the disabled elderly in Japan

The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between life worth living and caregiver burden among caregivers in Japan. We used 111 caregivers of frail elders who completed a self-administered questionnaire including the 8 items developed by Arai et al. (J-ZBI) used as a scale to measure subjective burdens and psychological factors used as covariates other than life worth living. Total score (0–32) of the J-ZBI was dichotomized into “high burden” (≥21 points) and “low burden” (<21 points). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that only life worth living was significantly associated with caregiver burden. The direct effect of life worth living on caregiver burden (92.9%) was much greater than the indirect effect (7.1%). Our findings suggest that the increase of the sense of life worth living may play an important role in the prevention of the development of caregiver burden.