Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M1C 1A4.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Jul 11;114(28):7319-7324. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1701597114. Epub 2017 Jun 27.
Dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases cause profound declines in functioning; thus, many patients require caregivers for assistance with daily living. Patients differ greatly in how long they live after disease onset, with the nature and severity of the disease playing an important role. Caregiving can also be extremely stressful, and many caregivers experience declines in mental health. In this study, we investigated the role that caregiver mental health plays in patient mortality. In 176 patient-caregiver dyads, we found that worse caregiver mental health predicted greater patient mortality even when accounting for key risk factors in patients (i.e., diagnosis, age, sex, dementia severity, and patient mental health). These findings highlight the importance of caring for caregivers as well as patients when attempting to improve patients' lives.
痴呆症和其他神经退行性疾病会导致功能严重下降；因此，许多患者需要护理人员来帮助他们日常生活。患者从发病到死亡的时间长短差异很大，疾病的性质和严重程度起着重要作用。护理工作也可能非常有压力，许多护理人员的心理健康状况会下降。在这项研究中，我们调查了护理人员心理健康状况在患者死亡中的作用。在 176 对患者-护理人员的配对中，我们发现，即使考虑到患者的关键风险因素（即诊断、年龄、性别、痴呆症严重程度和患者的心理健康），护理人员的心理健康状况越差，患者的死亡率就越高。这些发现强调了在试图改善患者生活时，照顾护理人员和患者同样重要。
