Department of Psychology, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Caserta, Italy.
Department of Psychology, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Caserta, Italy.
Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2021 Jan;29(1):27-34. doi: 10.1016/j.jagp.2020.10.009. Epub 2020 Oct 22.
Caregivers of people with dementia (pwD) are at risk of depression, anxiety, and burden. COVID-19 pandemic and government-imposed lockdown as a preventive measure might increase psychological symptoms in caregivers. The authors performed a study to measure the change of psychological symptoms during quarantine or self-isolation for COVID-19 in a sample of Italian caregivers of pwD, and to investigate if the resilience is associated with psychological changes in the sample.
Eighty-four caregivers of pwD completed an online survey including questionnaires assessing depressive symptomatology and anxiety before and during the lockdown, caregiver burden and levels of resilience.
The multivariate analysis of variance revealed an effect of time (before and during the lockdown) in the whole group on depression scores; a significant interaction between time and resilience was found on anxiety scores, revealing that caregivers with high resilience showed a more significant increase of anxiety levels during lockdown than caregivers with low resilience. Moreover, the regression analysis revealed that caregiver burden was associated negatively with resilience scores, and positively with higher functional dependence.
COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown produced psychological consequences in caregivers of pwD, with an increase of levels of depression. Moreover, high resilience had a negative effect on anxiety levels and no effect on depressive symptomatology during the lockdown; moreover, it was associated with lower levels of caregiver burden. All caregivers, even those with high resilience levels, should be addressed to psychological interventions to reduce levels of depression, anxiety and caregiver burden.
痴呆症患者（pwD）的照顾者有患抑郁症、焦虑症和负担过重的风险。为预防起见，COVID-19 大流行和政府实施的封锁可能会增加照顾者的心理症状。作者对意大利一组痴呆症患者照顾者进行了一项研究，以测量在 COVID-19 隔离或自我隔离期间心理症状的变化，并调查韧性是否与样本中的心理变化相关。
84 名痴呆症患者的照顾者完成了一项在线调查，其中包括在封锁前后评估抑郁症状和焦虑程度的问卷、照顾者负担和韧性水平。
多变量方差分析显示，整组在时间（封锁前后）上对抑郁评分有影响；在焦虑评分上发现时间和韧性之间存在显著的交互作用，表明高韧性的照顾者在封锁期间焦虑水平的显著增加高于低韧性的照顾者。此外，回归分析表明，照顾者负担与韧性评分呈负相关，与较高的功能依赖性呈正相关。
COVID-19 大流行和封锁给 pwD 的照顾者带来了心理后果，导致抑郁水平升高。此外，高韧性在封锁期间对焦虑水平没有影响，但对抑郁症状有负面影响；此外，它与较低的照顾者负担水平相关。所有照顾者，即使是那些具有高韧性水平的照顾者，都应该接受心理干预，以降低抑郁、焦虑和照顾者负担的水平。
