Regular Research ArticleThe Two-Year Incidence of Depression and Anxiety Disorders in Spousal Caregivers of Persons with Dementia: Who is at the Greatest Risk?
Section snippets
Design and Setting
Data were derived from the Family Meetings study (FAME). The design of the FAME study has been described elsewhere.12, 13 Briefly, FAME tested the (cost-) effectiveness of a family meetings intervention aimed at preventing the onset of mental disorders in family caregivers of persons with dementia in The Netherlands. Data for 192 dyads of family caregivers and their relatives with dementia living at home at intake were collected during 24 months. Participants were recruited from memory clinics
Study Sample
Participants were recruited from November 2007 to November 2009. The baseline characteristics of the study sample are described in Table 1. A flow chart of the study sample and missing measurement points is presented in Figure 1. The 84 caregivers with missing outcome data on at least one follow-up assessment were caring more often for a patient with Alzheimer disease compared with other dementias than the caregivers with complete follow-up data (Wald χ2 = 4.90, df = 1, odds ratio [OR]: 1.98,
Main Findings
In this study, over the course of two years, 60% of the family caregivers developed a depressive and/or anxiety disorder. Incident anxiety disorders were more frequent than depressive disorders. This shows that many spouses provided care at a considerable cost to themselves. Caregiver sub-threshold depressive symptoms and poor self-reported health at baseline predicted the onset of a depressive and/or anxiety disorder as well as the onset of these disorders separately. If caregivers of patients
Conclusion
In conclusion, a majority of the spousal caregivers developed a depression and/or an anxiety disorder within two years. Although it is already known that caring for a dementia patient appears to be a very stressful type of caregiving compared with patients with other illnesses,42 this very high incidence underscores the extreme vulnerability of this group. The specific demands that dementia poses on the caregiver such as being “on duty” 24 hours a day and the fact that caregiving for dementia
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