Medical conditions and depressive symptoms: A study of kinship profiles in dementia caregivers.

Objective: To analyze the association between diverse medical conditions and depressive symptoms in different profiles of dementia caregivers based on sex and kinship (wives, husbands, daughters, and sons).

Methods: Individual interviews were conducted with 338 dementia family caregivers. Depressive symptoms were measured with the Spanish version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale. Medical conditions encompassed the following physical diseases: high cholesterol, osteoarthritis, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular, brain, kidney, liver, and stomach diseases.Logistic regression analyses were carried out to identify determinants associated to thepresenceof depressive symptoms.

Results: High cholesterol was the most frequent disease among caregivers.Significant differences among groups were found in depressive symptoms: between wives (50.60%) and husbands (28.40%),(p = 0.033), and between daughters (57.00%) and husbands (p = 0.001). Half of the sonsreported thepresenceof depressive symptoms. In daughters, depressive symptomatology was significantly more likely whether they presented a worse reaction to disruptive behaviors, a poor assessment of global deterioration of care recipient, and less perceived health status. Furthermore, daughters were 1.94 times more likely to experience depressive symptoms if they presented medical conditions (p = 0.017).

Conclusions: Daughter caregivers that have depressive and physical diseases may be an especially vulnerable subgroup of caregivers that may not be the ideal population to provide care. Access to high-quality, evidence-based therapies focused on improving caregivers' physical health could have a positiveeffecton thepresenceof depressive symptoms, particularly in the case of daughter caregivers.