The impact of sense of humor and other psychosocial variables on caregiver depression

by Katz, Carole G.

The purpose of this study was to determine what variables would help allieviate depression among spouses caring for their spouses with dementia. Today with people living a longer period of time this dreaded illness will affect more people in the future. Dementia caregiving is associated with a variety of adverse mental and physical outcomes, the most prevalent one being caregiver depression. Humor is usually not considered an important personality characteristic for dealing with life’s stresses. However, it has been shown to act as a moderator of stress. The sample was composed of 86 spousal caregivers. They responded to a Caregiver Humor Survey, including the CES, the Coping Humor Scale, and Caregiver Burden Inventory (ZBI). A multiple regression analysis showed that caregiver burden was the most statistically significant variable to predict depression. Although not statistically significant, sense of humor showed a moderate negative relationship to caregiver depression. Its use as a tool for all caregivers needs to be more fully explored.