Quality of the caregiving relationship and quality of life in mild Alzheimer's dementia.

BACKGROUND: The present study aims to investigate the quality of the dyadic relationship between mild Alzheimer patients and their caregivers. The main objective is to evaluate the consistency, agreement and validity of the German version of the Scale for Quality of the Current Relationship in Caregiving (SQCRC). The secondary objective was to examine the association of relationship quality with quality of life (QOL) in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their caregivers.

METHODS: In this study, a sample of 50 patients diagnosed with mild AD and their primary caregivers were included. Participants underwent a full neuropsychological evaluation. The quality of the relationship between persons with AD and their caregivers was assessed using the SQCRC. Furthermore, other scales of relationship quality, well-being of the person with AD, and well-being of the caregiver were used.

RESULTS: The results showed that the SQCRC has a good internal consistency and high validity. Also, relationship quality as rated by the AD patients (r = 0.37, P < 0.1) and their caregivers (r = 0.51, P < 0.1) was significantly correlated with QOL.

CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that many persons with mild AD can rate their relationship quality and that the patient's self-rated relationship quality is a substantial predictor of their QOL.