Neuropsychiatric symptom clusters of Alzheimer disease in Hong Kong Chinese: correlates with caregiver burden and depression.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the relative effects of different neuropsychiatric syndromes of Alzheimer disease (AD) on caregiver burden and depression.
METHODS: One hundred forty-two Chinese family carers of persons with AD were individually interviewed using Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), Revised Memory and Behavior Problems Checklist (RMBPC), Zarit Burden Interview, Pearlin's measure of role overload, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, and other relevant measures (e.g., caregiving hours per week, relationship to care recipient [CR], CR's functional impairment). CRs were administered the Cantonese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination. AD severity was determined by Clinical Dementia Rating. NPI and RMBPC items were scored according to syndromal classifications (NPI: behavior problems, psychosis, mood disturbance, euphoria; RMBPC: disruptive behaviors, depression, memory-related problems). Data were analyzed using multiple regression, with caregiver gender, caregiving hours per week, and CR's functional impairment as covariates. The analysis with Hamilton depression as the outcome variable also included Zarit burden and role overload as predictors.
RESULTS: NPI behavior and NPI mood were consistent predictors of Zarit burden and role overload. RMBPC memory predicted Zarit burden. No other neuropsychiatric syndromes had independent effects on burden and overload. After partializing out the effects of burden, overload, and other covariates, NPI behavior was the only syndrome that predicted caregiver depression.
CONCLUSIONS: Not all neuropsychiatric symptoms affected caregiver burden and depression, and overt behavior problems and mood disturbances were consistent predictors of burden.