Objectives: This exploratory study aimed at investigating profiles of care needs in people with mild to moderate dementia and examined variables associated with these profiles.
Design: A longitudinal international cohort study.
Setting and participants: The baseline data of 447 community-dwelling dyads of people with dementia and their caregivers from the Access to Timely Formal Care (Actifcare) Study were included for analysis.
Methods: A latent class analysis was applied to identify profiles of needs, measured with the Camberwell Assessment of Need for the Elderly as rated by the caregiver. We examined sociodemographic (eg, relative stress scale) and clinical characteristics (eg, neuropsychiatric inventory) associated with these profiles.
Results: Four distinct need profiles were identified through latent class analysis. These comprised a «no need» profile (41% of the sample), a «met psychological needs» profile (25%), a «met social needs» profile (19%), and an «unmet social needs» profile (15%). A larger impact of caregiving on the caregiver’s life as indicated by a higher relative stress scale score was associated with the «unmet social needs» profile.
Conclusions and implications: In this large European sample, there was a subgroup of persons with dementia with high «unmet social needs» whose caregivers simultaneously perceived high stress in their caregiving tasks. Identification of these profiles may help provision of appropriate support for these people.
Journal of the American Medical Directors Association