Our hypothesis was that family caregivers’ caring behavior
and caregiver reactions (perception of caregiving
based on work load) might significantly affect COPD patients’ self-care behavior. Relative to this, several aspects of familial caregiving were negatively associated with patients’ self-care behavior, including higher levels of family caregivers’ caring behavior and family caregivers’ disease knowledge. These results likely reflect greater patient dependence on involved familial caregivers.