Overload, psychopathologies and relationship with the community pharmacist in informal caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients

Introduction: Daily care for a relative who is an Alzheimer’s patient (AP) entails a significant emotional and physical stress for the caregiver. This can result in an intense feeling of overload and lead to diverse psychopathologies as depression, anxiety, aggressiveness, psychophysical asthenia, etc. The increase in the rate of occurrence of the disease is causing a shortage of caregivers and a lack of social and institutional support to the families responsible for caring for an AP.

Objectives: To review the characteristics of the support that the social and healthcare structures provide informal caregivers (IC) of AP, to get to know their profile, the perception they have of their situation and their state of mind, to detect psychopathologies that may affect them, to quantify their level of overload and to evaluate the social support perceived, the current degree of family satisfaction and the relationship with their regular pharmacist.

Methods: Crossover descriptive study involving IC of non-institutionalized AP, recruited in associations for relatives of AP in Galicia, who are over 18 years of age and have given their informed consent.

Primary variable: score on the Zarit overload scale for the caregiver. Others: socio-demographic, anxiety (STAI), depression (Beck) and the social (Duke-UNC) and family support (APGAR) perceived.

Discussion: The results of the method implemented in this study be used to develop similar programs in the community pharmacy, in which the community pharmacists collaborate in the detection of possible psychopa­thologies, and through the provision of professionals services help to improve the quality of life and state of health ofthe caregivers.