Caregiver profiles in dementia related to quality of life, depression and perseverance time in the European Actifcare study: The importance of social health
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Objectives: To identify caregiver profiles of persons with mild to moderate dementia and to
investigate differences between identified caregiver profiles, using baseline data of the international
prospective cohort study Actifcare.
Methods: A latent class analysis was used to discover different caregiver profiles based on disease
related characteristics of 453 persons with dementia and their 453 informal caregivers. These profiles
were compared with regard to quality of life (CarerQoL score), depressive symptoms (HADS-D score)
and perseverance time.
Results: A 5-class model was identified, with the best Bayesian Information Criterion value, significant
likelihood ratio test (p < 0.001), high entropy score (0.88) and substantive interpretability. The classes
could be differentiated on two axes: (i) caregivers’ age, relationship with persons with dementia, severity
of dementia, and (ii) tendency towards stress and difficulty adapting to stress. Classes showed
significant differences with all dependent variables, and were labelled ‘older low strain’, ‘older
intermediate strain’, ‘older high strain’, ‘younger low strain’ and ‘younger high strain’.
Conclusion: Differences exist between types of caregivers that explain variability in quality of life,
depressive symptoms and perseverance time. Our findings may give direction for tailored
interventions for caregivers of persons with dementia, which may improve social health and reduce
health care costs.
Keywords
- Dementia, social health, well-being, quality of life, caregivers
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 49-57 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Aging and Mental Health |
Volume | 21 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 21 Nov 2016 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2017 |
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