ABSTRACT
There are gaps in knowledge regarding how the family caregiver deals with the burden of caring for elderly people with dementia.
Objective:
To evaluate the family caregivers’ perception of quality of life (QoL), burden, resilience and religiosity and relate them with cognitive aspects and occurrence of neuropsychiatric symptoms of elderly with dementia.
Methods:
Data from the QoL-AD scale, caregivers’ version, burden interview, resilience scale, Beck depression inventory and PDUREL of 50 family caregivers were correlated with disability assessment for dementia, neuropsychiatric inventory and clinical aspects of 50 elderly with dementia.
Results:
Linear regression showed that resilience is related with better perceived QoL (p<0.001), severity of dementia (p=0.008), higher intrinsic religiosity (IR) (p=0.044) and lower occurrence of depressive symptoms (p=0.001). Increased burden of family caregivers was associated with a higher occurrence of neuropsychiatric symptoms, education of the elder with dementia, and worse perceived QoL (p<0.001). Lower level of organizational religiosity was associated with severity of dementia.
Conclusion:
The most resilient caregivers had higher QoL and IR, fewer depressive symptoms, and cared for elders with more severe dementia. Cognitive and sociodemographic aspects, as well as neuropsychiatric symptoms, in the elderly with dementia were associated with QoL and greater caregiver burden.
Key words:
family caregiver; dementia; quality of life; burden; religiosity; resilience