Abstract:
Background:
The responsibilities of providing care and support for individuals suffering from any form of illness sometimes impose psychological burdens of
the care providers.
Objective:
The major concern of this study was to examine whether token economy therapy (TET) can effectively reduce the psychological burden of formal
caregivers in Ibadan, Nigeria.
Methods:
A quasi-experimental design was adopted. Two secondary health centres in Ibadan were purposively selected, while paid caregivers were
randomized into intervention (15) and control (15) groups. Two hypotheses were formulated and tested at a 0.05 significance level using Analysis
of Covariance as a statistical analysis.
Results:
Findings revealed that the main effect of treatment was significant on the psychological burden (F (1, 29) = 725.492, partial; ῆ2
= 0.962).
Furthermore, participants in the TET group had a post-treatment mean score of (χ=70.410) and those in the control group had (χ=31.335).
Conclusion:
The study concludes that TET was effective in reducing the psychological burden among health caregivers in state hospitals in Ibadan and was
recommended as a treatment modality to reduce psychological burden.
