Table 1.

Comparison of demographic, socio-economic, lifestyle factors, stress, social support, and depression symptoms between 55 caregivers and 61 controls

	Caregiver (n = 55)	Control (n = 61)	p value
Gender			0.428
Female (%)	44 (70 %)	45 (74 %)
Male (%)	11(30 %)	16(26 %)
Age (in years)	72 ± 6.2	72 ± 6.3	0.996
No. of co-morbidities	1.4 ± 1.3	1.5 ± 1.3	0.795
No. of co-morbidities of their spouse	2.4 ± 1.4	1.9 ± 1.4	0.001
No. of children	3.2 ± 1.43	3.2 ± 1.29	0.873
Education level (n (%))			0.579
No schooling	18 (33 %)	24 (39 %)
Primary school	23 (42 %)	26 (43 %)
Secondary school or above	14 (26 %)	11 (18 %)
Monthly household income (n (%))			0.384
$5,000 or below	19 (35 %)	14 (23 %)
$5,001–10,000	22 (40 %)	29 (48 %)
$10,001 or above	14 (26 %)	18 (30 %)
No. of hours taking care of their spouse	14 ± 6.1	2.5 ± 4.9	<0.0001
Perceived stress score	19.3 ± 8.44	16.0 ± 6.5	0.025
Caregiver Strain Index	7.5 ± 3.19	1.3 ± 1.90	<0.0001
Geriatric depression score	7.0 ± 3.91	5.0 ± 3.45	0.004
Total multidimensional social support score	4.8 ± 1.34	5.2 ± 1.18	0.068
Subscale—family	5.6 ± 1.11	6.0 ± 1.07	0.037
Subscale—friend	4.4 ± 1.75	4.6 ± 1.69	0.501
Subscale—significant others	4.3 ± 1.97	5.0 ± 1.59	0.056
Smoked >5 packs of cigarette in your entire life (n (%))	7 (13 %)	7 (12 %)	0.836
Consumed >5 drinks of alcoholic beverage everyday in your entire life (n (%))	2 (4 %)	4 (7 %)	0.478
Consumed >12 drinks of alcoholic beverage in the past 12 months (n (%))	1 (2 %)	2 (3 %)	0.621
Duration of physical activity per week (min)	254 ± 251.2	392 ± 198.8	<0.001
Albumin level	43.5 ± 2.55	44.2 ± 2.91	0.507
Height (cm)	154 ± 8.6	155 ± 8.1	0.557
Weight (kg)	57 ± 9.0	57 ± 14.4	0.879
BMI	24 ± 3.2	24 ± 5.6	0.819

Independent sample t test was used to compare the differences between the two groups. Differences in the percentage between the two groups were compared by chi-square test