Factors of resilience in informal caregivers of people with dementia from integrative international data-analysis

Background: Although caring for a person with dementia can be stressful, some caregivers appear to experience few negative consequences to their well-being. This study aimed to examine what proportion of caregivers demonstrate resilience under different challenging circumstances and identify factors related to their resilience.
Methods: Baseline data from four studies from The Netherlands and UK among informal caregivers of people with dementia were harmonized and integrated. Caregiver resilience was defined as high levels of psychological well-being despite different types of high caregiving demands. Multivariate regression analyses identified factors significantly related to caregiver resilience.
Results: The integrated dataset included 15 harmonized variables with data from 1,048 caregivers facing a high care demand. The prevalence of resilience varied between 35 to 43%, depending on the high care demand. Being a male caregiver, caring for a female, living apart from your relative and low caregiver burden were positively related with caregiver resilience.
Conclusion: Caregivers have the capacity to demonstrate resilience despite significant challenges. This study demonstrates how harmonisation of data from multiple existing studies can be used to increase power and explore consistency of findings. This contributes to better understanding of which factors are likely to facilitate caregiver resilience and offers insights for developing services