Psychiatric and physical morbidity effects of dementia caregiving: prevalence, correlates, and causes

Title

Psychiatric and physical morbidity effects of dementia caregiving: prevalence, correlates, and causes

Creator

Schulz R; O'Brien AT; Bookwala J; Fleissner K

Publisher

The Gerontologist

Date

1995

Subject

Cross-Sectional Studies; Female; Humans; Male; Adult; Aged; Middle Aged; Risk Factors; Cost of Illness; Incidence; 80 and over; P.H.S.; Research Support; U.S. Gov't; United States/epidemiology; Depressive Disorder/epidemiology/psychology; Activities of Daily Living/classification/psychology; Anxiety Disorders/epidemiology/psychology; Caregivers/statistics & numerical data; Dementia/epidemiology/psychology; Psychophysiologic Disorders/epidemiology/psychology

Description

The dementia caregiving literature is reviewed with the goals of (a) assessing the prevalence and magnitude of psychiatric and physical morbidity effects among caregivers, (b) identifying individual and contextual correlates of reported health effects and their underlying causes, and (c) examining the policy relevance of observed findings. Virtually all studies report elevated levels of depressive symptomatology among caregivers, and those using diagnostic interviews report high rates of clinical depression and anxiety. The evidence is more equivocal and generally weaker for the association between caregiving and physical morbidity, such as self-rated health, number of illnesses, symptomatology, health care utilization, preventive health behaviors, and cardiovascular functioning. Across studies, psychiatric morbidity in caregivers was linked to patient problem behaviors, income, self-rated health, perceived stress, and life satisfaction. Physical morbidity was associated with patient problem behaviors and cognitive impairment, and with caregiver depression, anxiety, and perceived social support. Possible causes of reported effects and policy implications are discussed.
1995

Rights

Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

Type

Journal Article

Citation List Month

Backlog

Citation

Schulz R; O'Brien AT; Bookwala J; Fleissner K, “Psychiatric and physical morbidity effects of dementia caregiving: prevalence, correlates, and causes,” Pediatric Palliative Care Library, accessed March 29, 2024, https://pedpalascnetlibrary.omeka.net/items/show/12040.