Informal Caregiving, Poor Mental Health, and Subjective Cognitive Decline: Results From a Population-Based Sample.
Monique J Brown, Steven A Cohen
PMID 33232495WHAT IT FOUND
Caregiving was not shown to be linked to reported memory or confusion decline after adjustment, but caregivers had more poor mental health days, and poor mental health was linked to more reported decline.
Key findings
01Informal caregiving was associated with one additional day of poor mental health per month after adjustment.
02A one-day increase in poor mental health was associated with a 5% increase in the odds of reporting subjective cognitive decline.
03Informal caregiving was not significantly associated with subjective cognitive decline after adjustment, including among men and women.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show whether caregiving, poor mental health or subjective cognitive decline came first. Caregiving was asked about the past 30 days, but subjective cognitive decline was asked about the past 12 months, so the timing may not match. All outcomes were self-reported, so people may have overreported or underreported caregiving, poor mental health or cognitive decline. The sample came from four U.S. states, MT, NJ, OR and TN, so it may not generalize to other states or countries. The caregiving question did not require assistance with activities of daily living or instrumental activities of daily living, and care hours and care recipient could not be included in the model. Some possible confounders were not measured, such as hypertension, so residual confounding may remain.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that informal caregiving causes subjective cognitive decline. The adjusted association between caregiving and subjective cognitive decline was not statistically significant, and the cross-sectional design cannot establish which came first.