Assessing the impact of neuropsychiatric symptoms on distress in professional caregivers

Caregiver burden has been studied extensively in family caregiver of Alzhei mer's patients. Behavioral disturbances have been widely reported to be a s ource of distress and burden for family caregivers. However, the study of t he effects of behavioral disturbance on distress for professional caregiver s in long-term care facilities has been relatively ignored. This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of neuropsychiatric symptoms among patien ts with dementia on distress in nursing home caregivers. One hundred and fi ve professional caregiver interviews were done in order to assess distress related to the frequency and severity of neuropsychiatric symptoms in one 1 25-bed proprietary nursing home staffed according to industry standards. Tw elve licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) and 12 certified nurses aids (CNAs) were interviewed regarding 69 nursing home residents using the Neuropsychia tric Inventory-Nursing Home Version (NPI-NH). Agitation and apathy were fou nd to be the two most distressing behaviors for both the LVNs and CNAs, but while the level of distress for the LVNs approaches that reported by famil y members in other published research, the CNAs report very little overall distress. In summary, professional caregiver distress appears to be a signi ficant problem in LVN caregivers in long-term care settings.