Relationships between sense of coherence, burden, social support and depression among caregivers of dementia patients

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to examine depression among caregivers of dementia patients and test its relationships with sense of coherence, burden, and social support among caregivers of dementia patients. The sample of  90 caregivers of dementia patients  from the Queen Savang Vadhana Memorial Hospital, was purposively  selected.  Research instruments consisted  of  five self-report questionnaires including  personal information,  Beck’s Depression Inventory,  Sense of coherence,  Caregiver  Burden  of  Patient with Dementia  and Social Support Scale.  Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze the data. The results revealed that 73.32% of caregivers of dementia patients had depression.  For depression caregivers, 20% had mild depression, 16.66% had moderate depression, 31.11% had high depression, and 5.55% had severe depression. From correlational analysis,  it was found that depression had significantly positive correlation with burden (r = 0.628, p < .05) and had negative correlation with social support among these caregivers (r = -0.223, p < .05). On the other hand, sense of coherence was not significantly correlate with depression (r = 0.135, p > .05).