Resourcefulness as a Mediator of the Effects of Dementia Symptoms and Caregiver Reactions on Caregiver Mental Health.
Jaclene A Zauszniewski, Christopher J Burant
PMID 32255406WHAT IT FOUND
In 138 women caring for people with dementia, self-help and help-seeking skills appeared to explain why depressive and disruptive dementia symptoms, but not memory problems, were linked to caregiver depressive symptoms.
Key findings
01Frequency of memory-related, depressive, and disruptive dementia symptoms was associated with lower caregiver resourcefulness, but only depressive and disruptive symptom frequency was associated with higher caregiver depressive symptoms.
02The paper reports that adding caregiver resourcefulness made the links between care recipient depressive and disruptive symptom frequency and caregiver depressive symptoms non-significant, suggesting resourcefulness partly explained those links.
03Resourcefulness partly explained the link between caregiver reactions to depressive and disruptive symptoms and caregiver depressive symptoms, but not reactions to memory-related symptoms.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only women caregivers were studied, so the findings may not apply to male caregivers. The sample was a convenience sample from one large Midwestern U.S. city, so it may not represent other places or populations. The analysis used baseline data and did not test an intervention, so it cannot show that resourcefulness training causes fewer caregiver depressive symptoms. All measures came from caregiver reports, so care recipient symptoms and caregiver reactions were not independently verified. The paper gives inconsistent statements about whether disruptive symptoms predicted resourcefulness, so the mediation finding for disruptive symptoms is less clear.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that teaching resourcefulness skills reduces caregiver depression. The study used existing baseline data and did not test the training.