Unique contributions of specific neuropsychiatric symptoms to caregiver burden in informal caregivers family members of patients with dementia.

Introduction: We aimed to evaluate how the presence of individual neuropsychiatric symptoms in non-institutionalised patients with dementia is associated with caregiver burden of their informal caregivers, family members.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study on a total of 131 pairs of one informal caregiver family member and non-institutionalised patient with dementia in a family medicine practices in a city of Zagreb, Croatia. Caregiver measures included Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) whereas patient measures included Mini mental state examination (MMSE), Barthel index and Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire (NPI-Q).