Social isolation due to COVID-19 pandemic has an important psychological impact particularly in persons with dementia and their informal caregivers.
To assess frequency and severity of long-term stress-related symptoms in caregivers of patients with dementia 1-year after the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic and to identify predictors of psychological outcomes.
Eighty-five caregivers were involved in a longitudinal study with 1-year follow-up during pandemic in Italy. At baseline in April 2020 a telephone interview assessed socio-demographic characteristics of caregivers and self-perception of distress symptoms. After 1 year, between March and April 2021, the same standardized interview was delivered to the caregivers' sample. In addition, scales assessing levels of depression and anxiety (DASS-21), sleep disturbances (PSQI) and coping strategies (COPE-NVI) were administered to the caregivers and to 50 age and sex-matched non-caregivers subjects. Linear regression analysis was performed to investigate the power of baseline variables to predict long-term psychological outcomes.
After 1 year of pandemic frequency of caregivers' stress-related symptoms increased respect to baseline: depression (60 vs. 5, 9%;
At 1 year follow-up caregivers of patients with dementia reported higher prevalence of all stress-related symptoms respect to the acute phase of lockdown, particularly depression. Long-lasting stressful conditions may cause exhaustion of resilience factors and increased depression. Planning interventions should support caregivers to enable them to continue with their role during pandemic.