Financial burden and quality of life of informal caregivers of patients with wet age-related macular degeneration

Health Economics Review

Table 3 Multivariate ANCOVA of direct total costs, quality of life and caring times

Direct total costs	p-value	Caregivers QoL	p-value	Caregivers caring time	p-value
Multivariate ANCOVA	p-value	Multivariate ANCOVA	p-value	Multivariate ANCOVA	p-value
Caring hours per week	<0.001	Caring hours per week	<0.001	Visual acuity	<0.001
Health insurance	<0.01	Patient age	0.13	Caregivers QoL	<0.001
Patient age	0.02	Caregiver gender	0.32	Caregiver age	0.04
Visual acuity	0.23	Caregiver age	0.54	Patient age	0.40
Caregiver age	0.62	Visual acuity	0.64	Health insurance	0.41
Caregiver gender	0.77	Health insurance	0.79	Caregiver gender	0.80

The costs did increase through patients being privately insured (p < 0.01), a higher patient age (p = 0.02) and more caring hours per week (p < 0.001). Concerning the quality of life of the caregivers, only the caring hours per week had a significant influence (p < 0.001). Caregivers caring times were associated with a lower visual acuity (p < 0.001), a lower QoL (p < 0.001) and a higher caregiver age (p = 0.04). Significant data were printed in bold

ISSN: 2191-1991