© 1995 The Gerontological Society of America
Psychiatric and Physical Morbidity Effects of Dementia Caregiving: Prevalence, Correlates, and Causes1
2 Department of Psychiatry and University Center for Social and Urban Research, University of Pittsburgh Address correspondence to Richard Schulz, PhD, UCSUR, Room 607, 121 University Place, University of Pittsburgh, PA 15260
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Abstract |
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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.
Keywords: Alzheimer's disease caregiving, Dementia caregiving, Psychiatric morbidity
Received December 30, 1994; Accepted June 4, 1995
1 Preparation of this article was in part supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH46015, MH52247) and the National Institute on Aging (AG09291).
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