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

Background and Aims. Care giving can be extremely stressful, especially when the patients' ability to communicate is impaired. While the stress of relatives assisting their beloved ones has been largely investigated, fewer data can be found about the stress in health care professionals. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether a specific training course could be related to a reduction of the levels of stress of professional caregivers 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 caregivers' age, gender, marital status, years of employment and perceived economic status and their levels stress at baseline. Characteristics of the patients were not related with caregivers' 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 study end point. Conclusions. An increased knowledge of management of patients affected by dementia could help professional caregivers in reducing their work-related stress. Our results seem to add to the evidence of a benefit of personnel support in reducing the levels of stress at work