Liew, Tau Ming

BACKGROUND Caregivers of persons with dementia (PWD) can experience loss and grief long before the death of the PWD, with such caregiver grief postulated to affect the well‐being of the PWD‐caregiver dyads. However, the longitudinal effects of caregiver grief and the moderating effects of social services are not yet clear.

Background: The experience of grief in family caregivers as they provide care for persons with dementia is often overlooked. The Marwit-Meuser-Caregiver-Grief-Inventory (MM-CGI) is one among the few scales that capture such experiences. In a recent study, MM-CGI was found to contain three subscales identifying dimensions of loss in caregivers - Personal-Sacrifice Burden (PSB), Heartfelt Sadness, Longing and Worry (HSLW), and Felt Isolation (FI).

Objectives: Caregivers of persons with dementia can experience loss and grief long before the death of the person. Although the phenomenon of caregiver grief has been increasingly described, it is uncertain if caregiver grief has independent effects—separate from the well-studied construct of caregiver burden—on adverse outcomes such as caregiver depression. We sought to compare the effects of baseline grief and burden on caregiver depression at baseline and 2.5 years later. Design and Setting: A cohort study with 2.5 years of follow-up.

Caregivers of persons with dementia (PWD) can experience loss and grief long before the death of the person. Although such experience of caregiver grief is measurable, available scales (such as the Marwit–Meuser Caregiver Grief Inventory, MM-CGI) are lengthy and have overlaps with other caregiving constructs. We developed a briefer scale that captures the essence of caregiver grief—with comparable psychometric properties and total score to MM-CGI, as well as less overlap with other caregiving constructs.