Tai, Bee Choo

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.

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.