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Anxiety and depression in family caregivers of people with Alzheimer disease: the LASER-AD study

Mahoney, Rachel, Regan, Ciaran, Katona, Cornelius, Livingston, Gill (2006) Anxiety and depression in family caregivers of people with Alzheimer disease: the LASER-AD study. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 13 (9). pp. 795-801. ISSN 0165-0327. (doi:10.1097/00019442-200509000-00008) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:12196)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00019442-200509000-00008

Abstract

Background: Caregivers of people with dementia (CGPD) frequently have anxiety symptoms but little is known about the relationship of anxiety with coping strategies.

Method: 126 people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their family caregivers living in the community were recruited from local psychiatric services, the voluntary sector and care homes. Sampling was designed to ensure that the sample was epidemiologically representative in terms of dementia severity, gender and care setting. We used the anxiety subscale of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) to measure anxiety and the Brief COPE to measure coping strategies.

Results: Use of dysfunctional coping strategies (Wald = 7.3, p = 0.007) and HADS depression caseness (Wald = 14.0, p < 0.001) were the only factors that predicted HADS anxiety caseness on logistic regression. Limitations: Anxious caregivers may be more likely to report their coping strategies negatively; these results do not clarify direction of causality.

Conclusions: Dysfunctional coping strategies and depression appear to be the most important factors predicting caregiver anxiety. Addressing coping strategies may be a helpful intervention for managing caregiver anxiety

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1097/00019442-200509000-00008
Subjects: R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Depositing User: M.P. Stone
Date Deposited: 10 Sep 2008 21:56 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 09:50 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/12196 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Katona, Cornelius.

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