Although our study does not define a level of atrial burden at which anti-coagulation is required it does support prior studies in considering lower levels of atrial fibrillation to be clinically significant.
Prolonged exposure, multiple ways of exposure, and exposure to mixture of pesticides could indeed determine – also at apparently sub-toxic doses – a level of CPF burden compatible with increased health risk.
Our findings also reveal that volunteers who served in a rural area experienced a lower level of burden than volunteers who served in an urban area.
The participants' final scores range from 0 to 48; a higher score indicates a higher level of burden.
For family carers' age, gender, relation to the patient, employment of family carers, number of family caregivers, number of GP visits and received nursing care no significant association was found between family carers with a high level of burden and a low level of burden during the second to fourth weeks before the patient's death (Table 3).
Each item is rated on a three-point Likert scale (0: no burden, 1: moderate burden, 2: severe burden) scored from 0 to 48; a higher score indicates a higher level of burden.
Of the questionnaires which were returned, 66% reported a reduction of subjectively perceived care burden, 29% reported a persistent level of burden and 5% reported an increased burden in the time during their treatment in the DSC.
Interestingly, those with an external locus of control seemed to experience a high level of burden, supporting the assumption that an external locus of control correlates with higher levels of psychological distress [ 48, 49].
Volunteers who worked in a hospital based CHPDC experienced on average a higher level of burden than volunteers who worked in community or public health centre based CHPDCs (β =3.514, p = 0.009).
A Chi-square test (categorical data) or independent T-test (continuous data) were used to assess the significance of differences between family carers who experienced a high level of burden and family carers who experienced a low level of burden with regard to caregiver and care characteristics.
