Abstract

Background and objective: Thalassemia affects not only the life of patients, but also leaves psychological, social, and economic burden on the parents, resulting in caregiver burden in parents. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate caregiver burden of parents of children with thalassemia major and factors related to it. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, 120 parents of children with thalassemia major were selected using proportional randomized sampling method. ZARIT caregiver burden questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were analyzed by using SPSS 21 software and descriptive and analytical tests. The mean and standard deviation of parental caregiver burden was 16.43 ± 7.76 and 45.8% of parents tolerated high level of caregiver burden. There was also a significant correlation between caregiver burden and child education (P = 0.015) and caring other child at home (P <0.006). Conclusion: given high level of parental care in children with thalassemia major, identifying factors involved in the incidence of caregiver burden and designing appropriate interventions to reduce the caregiver burden and improve the quality of life of caregivers and improve the quality of care provided to the patient seem to be necessary.