Leisure activity, gender and depressive symptoms among dementia caregivers: findings from the REACH II

Objectives: Providing care to individuals with dementia places burden on family caregivers, which may relate to depressive symptoms. Although leisure activities may serve as a coping resource to relieve caregiving stress, only a few studies exist on how leisure and depressive symptoms associate in dementia caregivers. Moreover, less is known about the role of gender in this relationship. Thus, this study examined the relationship among leisure activity, gender and depressive symptoms. Method: A cutoff score (≥10) on the short form of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale was used to measure presence of depressive symptoms. Independent variables were frequency of engagement in and satisfaction with leisure activities. Results: Logistic regression analyses from 632 dementia caregivers in the Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health II Study showed that more frequent and higher satisfaction in leisure engagement were negatively related to having depressive symptoms. Moreover, the negative association between frequent leisure engagement and depressive symptoms was more pronounced among male caregivers. Conclusion: Providing respite care for dementia caregivers to engage in leisure can be a promising coping strategy for this population. Also, gender difference in leisure-depressive symptoms relationship suggests different support needed for male and female caregivers in addition to leisure.