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. 2015 Mar;30(2):192-200.
doi: 10.1177/1533317514542643. Epub 2014 Jul 9.

Prolonged grief in caregivers of community-dwelling dementia patients

Serena Passoni  1 , Alessio Toraldo  2 , Barbara Villa  3 , Gabriella Bottini  4
Affiliations

Prolonged grief in caregivers of community-dwelling dementia patients

Serena Passoni et al. Am J Alzheimers Dis Other Demen. 2015 Mar.

Abstract

Objectives: To estimate the frequency of prolonged grief disorder (PGD) in 90 primary caregivers of patients with dementia who live in the community dwelling in Milan and to identify the relationship between grief intensity (GI) and other caregiver variables; another aim was to clarify the role of the objective cognitive and functional impairment of the patients and the level of deterioration perceived by caregivers.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Results: In all, 16.7% of caregivers had PGD. Caregiver variables increasing GI and the risk of developing PGD were burden, anxiety, and some sociodemographic features. The objective level of patient's deterioration was irrelevant for PGD probability/GI, while the deterioration level perceived by the caregiver increased PGD probability and GI.

Conclusions: Caregivers of patients with dementia may experience grief symptoms that are associated with low educational level, high level of burden and anxiety, and high perceived deterioration of their demented relatives' cognitive and functional abilities.

Keywords: caregivers; dementia; perceived deterioration; prolonged grief disorder.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Diagram of between-variables “pure” relationships (see text for details).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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