Stress in professional care-givers working with patients with dementia: a hypothesis-generating study

Background and aims: Caregiving can be extremely stressful, especially when patients' ability to communicate is impaired. While the stress undergone by relatives assisting their loved ones has been widely investigated, fewer data can be found about the stress in healthcare professionals. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether a specific training course could be related to a reduction in the levels of stress of professional care-givers working with patients suffering from dementia. Methods: Work-related levels of stress of study participants were evaluated with the Staff Stress Measure Dementia Care Scale, at baseline and four months after completion of an eight-month training course. Results: We found no significant correlation between care-givers' age, gender, marital status, years of employment or perceived economic status, and their stress levels at baseline. Patients' characteristics were not related with care-givers' stress at baseline. The mean level of stress was significantly reduced (34.64 +/- 4.15 vs 26.64 +/- 3.82, p<0.001) between baseline and the study endpoint. Conclusions: Increased knowledge of management of patients affected by dementia could help professional care-givers to reduce their work-related stress. Our results add to the evidence of the benefit of personnel support in reducing levels of stress at work. (C)2011, Editrice Kurtis