Impact of the pandemic time on the mental health of Chilean caregivers: 1‐year follow‐up preliminary results

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundThe worldwide COVID‐19 pandemic has been a major challenge for the health system in the past years. From March 2020 until 2022 there were extensive lockdowns in Latin America to ensure physical distance and reduce virus transmission. Previous studies reported the negative impact of social isolation on people living with dementia, however, the impact on caregivers has been little studied so far. This study analyses the mental impact of the pandemic time on caregivers of people with dementia.MethodIn order to evaluate clinical and behavioral changes from the prior assessment conducted in 2020 with people with dementia and their family caregivers, a 1‐year follow‐up phone study was conducted with the same sample from the previous research. Participants from Chile were assessed by two semi‐structured questionnaires.Results106 caregivers of patients with dementia were interviewed during the year 2020 (age: 73.3 ± 9.5 years; female: 57%). After one year of follow‐up, 61 caregivers were contacted. Compared to baseline, after one year of follow‐up, 75% % of the caregivers reported worse physical and mental health (p:0.028), 56% more sadness associated with patient care (p:0.001); 93% reduced sleeping time (p:0.07) and 51% received more help to care the patient with dementia (p:0.036). Results are reported in table 1.ConclusionAlthough the caregiver had more daily assistance in 2021 compared with 2020, the pandemic time had a negative impact on their physical and psychological health. Even if these results might be explained by the normal evolution of dementia, the follow‐up results did not show a significant behavioral change in the person with dementia, and so the changes in the caregiver might be more a consequence of the pandemic rather than exclusively the disease.