COPING WITH DEMENTIA--MULTIVARIATE CAUSAL MODELS

一项前瞻性的纵向研究提出了审查的决定因素， 老年痴呆症患者照顾者的长期应对。 至少200 最初轻度到中度的Demetia受害者及其照顾者将 在两年半的时间里， 收藏. 最初的两波将相隔六个月，第三波将在 第四波将在第二波和第三波的一年后发生， 分别 一个广泛的概念模型，基于现有的文献， 应对慢性压力和关于照顾者的大量文献 应对将指导数据收集和分析。 收集的主要数据类别包括： 客观压力、感知压力和长期应对指标。 在 此外，还将检查五种条件变量： 社会人口学特征、社会支持、应对策略 照顾者，两个人格因素，以及关系的性质 在患病之前，照顾者和受害者之间的关系。 描述性，协方差 和结构建模技术（LISREL）将被用来回答 关于压力变化和长期应对的基本问题 在痴呆症患者的照顾者中， 确定我们的概念中确定的变量之间的因果关系 框架.

A prospective longitudinal study is proposed to examine the determinants of long-term coping among caregivers of dementia patients. A minimum of 200 initially mild to moderate demetia victims and their caregivers will be followed for a period of two-and-one-half years, with four waves of data collection. The initial two waves will be six months apart and the third and fourth waves will occur one year after the second and third, respectively. A broad conceptual model based on the existing literature on coping with chronic stress and on the extensive literature on caregiver coping will guide the data collection and analysis. The major categories of data to be collected include indicators of objective stress, perceived stress, and indicators of long-term coping. In addition, five types of conditioning variables will be examined: sociodemographic characteristics, social support, coping strategies used by the caregiver, two personality factors, and the nature of the relationship between caregiver and victim prior to the illness. Descriptive, covariance and structural modeling techniques (LISREL) will be used to answer fundamental questions regarding changes in stress and coping over time among caregivers of dementia patients and to test specific models identifying causal links between the variables identified in our conceptual framework.