Comparison of the perceived burden by main carers of patients with infantile cerebral palsy and the clinical characteristics of these patients seen at the Hospital Infantil Napoleón Franco Pareja of the city of Cartagena, Colombia

INTRODUCTION: infantile cerebral palsy (ICP) is a series of disorders of thedevelopment of the movement and the position, due to a cerebral injury in the fetalperiod or first years.OBJECTIVE: to compare the overburden of the carer with the degree of deteriorationand the number of comorbidities that present the patients with infantile cerebral palsy(ICP).METHODS: it was made a descriptive Cross-Sectional study in which, previous clinicaland epidemiological characterization of the cases of PCI seen at the Hospital InfantilNapoleon Franco Pareja (HINFP) in the period between January 2010 and December2011 through revision of the corresponding clinical histories, it was applied to the maincarers of those patients the survey developed by Zarit et all., for the determinationof the perceived burden due to the care of the patients and subsequent correlation ofthese with the characteristics of the patients. Data was saved in database Excel andthey were analyzed by means of the statistic program EPI INFO version 3.5.1.RESULTS: there were identified 66 patients and their carers to whom it was applied thesurvey of Zarit. All carers are from socioeconomic stratum 1 and with incomplete basiceducational level. As for to the patients with PCI: Mean age was 6.4 years old, 40.9%of female gender and 59.1% male, with the majority of urban areas (80.3%). Thetype of palsy found was Spastic with 78.8% of the cases, followed by hypotonic 9.1%.43.9% of the patients had as associated diagnosis epilepsy. 12.1% presented 3 or morecomorbidities. The presence of multiple comorbidities was associated to the presence ofexcessive burden of the carer (p=0.001).CONCLUSIONS: the more frequent type of PCI was spastic palsy. To higher numberof comorbidities, higher the overburden of the carers. Rev.cienc.biomed. 2012;3(2):242-248RESUMEN:INTRODUCCIóN: la parálisis cerebral infantil (PCI) es una serie de trastornos deldesarrollo del movimiento y la postura, debida a injuria cerebral en la época fetal oprimeros a os.OBJETIVO: comparar la sobrecarga del cuidador con el grado de deterioro y número decomorbilidades que presentan los pacientes con parálisis cerebral infantil (PCI)METODOLOGíA: se realizó un estudio descriptivo de corte transversal previa caracterizaciónclínica y epidemiológica de los casos de PCI atendidos en el Hospital InfantilNapoleón Franco Pareja (HINFP) entre enero de 2010 y diciembre de 2011, medianterevisión de las historias clínicas correspondientes, se le aplicó a los cuidadores principalesde dichos pacientes la encuesta de Zarit y col., para la determinación de la cargaper