Demented and chronic depressed patients attending a day hospital: stress experienced by carers

Mental disorder and caregiver burden in spouses: the Nord-Trøndelag health study

“…This makes it difficult to relate our results to findings from other studies comparing the burden of different disorders. However, it could be argued that the moderate effect sizes found in our study indicate that anxiety and depression disorders are not associated with a very heavy burden, and that this lends some support to previous results showing a smaller burden associated with depressive disorders than other disorders [23,31,32]. …”

“…Studies reporting that the burden of depression is smaller or more infrequent compared to the burden of for example bipolar disorder [31], schizophrenia [23] or dementia [32] may lead to a general perception that burden is larger for the more severe psychiatric diagnoses; however, other studies comparing the burden of depression with the burden of schizophrenia [24] or dementia [33] found similar amounts of burden. Furthermore, a study of partners of people suffering from anxiety disorders, depression or schizophrenia did not find any support for a relationship between strength of burden and type of diagnosis or duration of the illness, but rather between burden and level of impairment in everyday functioning [34].…”

Dementia and Depressive Symptoms as Predictors of Home Help Utilization Among the Oldest Old

“…Most studies found that caregivers of those with dementia were more distressed than those caring for older people with depression (Leinonen, Korpisammal, Pulkkinen, & Pukuri, 2001;Livingston, Manela, & Katona, 1996). However, the level of psychological distress among caregivers of elderly persons with depression was significantly higher than that found in the general population (Rosenvinge, Jones, Judge, & Martin, 1998). Others found levels of burden among caregivers of older persons with depression to be similar to those found in studies with caregivers of persons with dementia (Scazufca, Menezes, & Almeida, 2002).…”

Family members’ perspective of depression in old people in Vietnam

“…Older people who had more severe depression for a longer period of time placed a heavier burden on caregivers. Primary caregivers of depressed people experienced greater severity of psychological distress (Rosenvinge, Jones, Judge, & Martin, 1998). The caretaker's workload would increase as a result of depression among the medically ill population (Langa, Valenstein, Fendrick, Kabeto, & Vijan, 2004 ;Sewitch, McCusker, Dendukuri, & Yaffe, 2004).…”