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It is expected that the number of families who are caring for elderly patients will be increased in this society. They will have a financial, a psychological, and a social burden related to this responsibility. The purpose of this study was to grasp the burden level of family who are caring for elderly patients, and to find out the factors related to the family burden. The number of subjects was 64 and they were the families who were caring for elderly patients who are admitted in the S-hospital. The data was collected by observation of the patients daily activity level and the self reported questionnaire for the family burden The data was analyzed by percentile, frequency and ANOVA. Most of the subjects who were caring for elderly patients were female(95.3%) with a mean age of 47.8 years, and the range of age of the subjects was 21-61 years. Seventy five percent(48) of the subjects had more than a above high school education and 62.6%(40) were house wives. The number of male patients was 78.1%(50), with mean age of 72 years, and the range of age was 61-95 years. The primary school graduates were 43.8%(28), and 21.9% were not officially educated. The elderly patients were to be aided in daily activities including social activity, toileting, dressing, self hygiene. No assistance with eating was given. The mean score of the burden of the elderly family was 71.73 from the possible range of 25-125. The item mean score was 2.87 among the possible range of 1-5. The higher items of the burden scores were for ’I couldn’t have enough time for the care of patients’(3.76), ’I am worring about the prognosis of patients’(3.69), and ’The cost is too expensive(3.69)’, It is a suffering for me to see patient(3.67)’. These scores reflected the social, emotional, physical, and economic burden. There was no significant difference between the family burden score related to the daily activity level of elderly patients. The mean burden score of the subjects was higher in the dependent elderly group in their daily activity than in the independent group. The mean burden score of the subjects who were caring for the activity of daily living dependent group was higher than for the subjects who were caring for the independent group. But the differences were not significant statistically. There were no differences of the family burden score related to the education level, job status, religion, and duration of patients care. There were differences of the family burden score according to the relationship between the elderly patients and the family. It was identified that the related factors to the family burden score of the elderly patients were the level of daily activity dependence and the relation ship between the subjects and the elderly patients.
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