Carers' knowledge of dementia, their coping strategies and morbidity

Enhancing Resourcefulness to Improve Outcomes in Family Caregivers and Persons with Alzheimer’s Disease: A Pilot Randomized Trial

“…This new knowledge may heighten the caregiver's anticipation and feelings of loss as they understand more about the disease and the course of decline that it will follow. This result is consistent with the findings of Graham et al [ 40 ] and Proctor et al [ 41 ], indicating that knowledge about AD increases anxiety. Another possible reason for the increase in anxiety in caregivers in the intervention group at 6 weeks may be the timing of data collection, which coincided with the completion of the intervention program.…”

Illness representation and sense of coherence in dementia caregiving

“…We found that carers who reported greater knowledge of the disease were more likely to experience worse health, lower SOC and higher depressive symptoms. This finding is in line with reports that greater knowledge of dementia can result in greater psychological distress in carers (Graham et al, 1997; Proctor et al, 2002). It is important to acknowledge, however, that this item asks carers to report how well they feel they understand the illness as opposed to assessing dementia knowledge per se.…”

A qualitative study of professional and client perspectives on information flows and decision aid use

“…Such positioning maintains a status quo where health professionals control information [ 23 ] and the need to discuss difficult topics is avoided [ 37 ]. Our result fit with other findings that carers with knowledge of the facts of dementia demonstrate decreased rates of depression, more realistic expectations of outcomes, increased feelings of decision competence, and greater use of positive comparisons [ 25 , 26 ]. Hypotheses as to the causes of the association between information and anxiety for some carers include the possibilities that carers may become increasingly anxious if information is vague or not forthcoming [ 26 ] or that information augments carers' anticipation of loss [ 17 ].…”