A comparative study between Japan and the United States about social support in caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease.

2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 16592211
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Community health/Gerontological nurisng
• Research Institution: HIROSHIMA UNIVERSITY
• Principal Investigator: MIYASHITA Mika Hiroshima University, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Assistant Professor, 大学院保健学研究科, 講師 (60347424)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KAI Ichiro The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine, Professor, 大学院医学系研究科, 教授 (30126023)
• Project Period (FY): 2004 – 2005
• Keywords: social support / Alzheimer's disease / caregiver / comparative study / depression / loneliness / burden / reward

Research Abstract

This study is aimed to describe positive support, negative support, and desired support in caregivers of persons with AD in Japan and the US, and to compare with the two countries. Furthermore, the relationships between those supports and outcome variables, that is depression, loneliness, care burden, and caregiver reward in the two countries relatively. The comparison of the two countries in the relationships between the outcome variables and the two countries is also the purpose of this study. Fifty caregivers of persons with AD were recruited as study participant in the two countries respectively. In Japan, twenty persons mentioned formal support as most helpful, and in the US, forty one persons mentioned formal support as most helpful support. The mean scores of helpful support were 4.1 in Japan, and 2.9 in the US. There was significant difference between the mean score of helpful support in Japan and the US (p=0.010). As to outcome variables, the mean scores of depression, loneliness, care burden, and caregiver reward were 13.6±9.8, 33.0±9.3, 33.6±17.3, 34.7±10.1 respectively in Japan. In the US, those were 14.4±10.4, 36.4±9.4, 38.5±10.6, 38.5±11.8 respectively. The mean scores of loneliness and care burden in Japan were declined to low compared with those scores in the US. In the results of multiple regressions, there was no significant interactive effect to the outcome variables between social support and country. There was no significant difference in the outcome variables accordingly the relation to care recipient in the US. The mean score of the loneliness in the persons who were daughter-in-law of the care recipient was declined to high compared with the other persons. It was suggested that there were differences in outcome variables according to the relation to care recipient between Japan and the US.